What the heck is a remark?

A remark is more than a signature. It’s sometimes a hand modified alteration to an existing drawing. Like if I added flames to Battle Beast’s eyes, or added green drool to his mouth.

It’s also commonly little mini drawings, ranging from simple line work, to something more detailed like I’ve done here.

Typically people just ask for 1 character for their remark. But this client wanted 4. 😳

Remarks can be tricky.

Printed covers usually have some type of coating that don’t like to be drawn on with pencil or regular pens. And even if you can find a pen (like a sharpie) that you can draw on it with, you can’t erase those lines or you’ll damage the book.

So acrylic paint pens are the answer. But those present their own problems.

You have to be very patient.

You have to have the vision to do each layer with fairly non existent line work beneath. Best practice is to do your “drawing” with a white acrylic pen, and then fill that in completely with a white base. This will allow the other colors to pop, and reduce the need to do reapply, especially for colors like yellow, which just doesn’t have a strong opacity.

You have to apply the colors in layers and allow each layer to dry thoroughly or you’ll pull up the previous layer with the new one, which will cause all kinds of other headaches.

If you try to do inks first, the wet acrylic will usually cause the ink to bleed, and then you’re making a mess and mixing black ink with whichever color you’re adding on top.

It’s not until all the colors have been applied that you can then come in with your inks.

This is a fairly monstrous remark. But tbh, it turned out way better than I initially thought it might. So I’m gonna give myself some props for that.

This was 1 of 19 remarks I did yesterday. And I have 15 more to do today. 🥵

But new challenges help us grow, so I’m gonna keep growing!