Prisoner of the Mind issue #4 book cover ink and paint

"Prisoner of the Mind is a great read that’s as entertaining as it is mysterious." More ~ Comic Bastards

Prisoner of the Mind Issue #4 is out on Comixology Wednesday June 24, 2015, so I thought I would go back to the roots of the cover design for this book. Above is the final pen and ink drawing for the cover without paint or text.

Above is the final cover, digitally painted with graphic elements added, including atmosphere, lighting and text. Usually when I am creating a book cover, I go through many stages of design and trial and error. Sometimes the idea starts out on a napkin or scrap of paper and then it's developed into the final piece. In this case, I didn't like the position or expression on Cole's face in the final ink drawing, so I painted it out and started over on the final version. That was all done in Photoshop afterward. The coloring also went through a number of changes. 

Because this book was created as a Graphic Novel in over 300 pages, I  had to separate out all of the chapters, to present it as a comic book series. So, each chapter becomes one comic book. The final story arc will be about 10 books total. That gives me an opportunity to make 10 really unique book covers. With that said, I wanted to vary up the coloring of each one as well. If all the covers are painted the same, it would look boring.

This is the book cover for issue number 3. You can see that I kept my same style of artwork to be consistent with the book, but the color scheme is very different.

Issue #4 release date is confirmed on June 24, 2015. If you haven't had a chance to catch my series yet, you can purchase them digitally on Comixology here.

“Allan Linder tells a dark intriguing tale with a subtle underlying story that comes from a deeper philosophical place than just your average comic book.” … More ~ Outside the Cube

"An inspirational neo-noir Sci-Fi masterpiece graphic novel." ~ Super Robot Mayhem