From realistic to cartoony then back to realistic

Behind The Love: Stjepan Sejic's #3 variant cover

Boom!

Hang on, let me zoom in on that

a tad more…

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

That’s the magic you’re hiring Stjepan Sejic for. The full lips, the nose, the incredible lighting on the face. It’s all there. Almost fell off my chair when I saw this zoomed in. And how about the trick of hiding her eyes juuuuuust enough to get you crazy with mystery.

It always makes me super giddy when I see design elements I came up with adapted in a whole other drawing style. I was especially excited by the glasses chains. For reference, here’s my Joan for the issue Stjepan drew the variant for.

See the glasses chain? It’s graphic and minimalist. By that I mean that’s clearly something that couldn’t exist in real life, the chain’s links are not even connected. That leaves plenty of room for interpretation, and what made sense with Stjepan’s style was to make them a lot more realistic and textured.

The same goes with the hair. Joan’s hair throughout the whole series is always an almost solid black shape, no matter the era she’s in or her hairstyle. No one in real life would wear their hair like but that’s what I love about working in a cartoony style. Your job is to distill the essence of, say, something like this

and eliminate details. What an artist like Stjepan does when he’s got to work from a cartoony style is the exact opposite. He reverts the process! I find that designing phase in drawing fascinating.

That was your friendly reminder that art is the best thing and that you have

Only two more days to pre-order Love Everlasting #3!

My enlarged cover, in case you missed it before.

Much love,

Elsa