Book Cover Illustration...

**Jason Manley** · December 15th, 2002

here ya go...

this image was HEAVILY art directed...more so than any image Ive ever worked on.

:bars:

enjoy

j

PS...thanks to coro, foster, jaymz and puddnhead for all the input.

**I.was.ink** · December 15th, 2002

WOW! my retnas just fell off. Its so amazing at how good that is. I love the whole thing. I wish I could see the steps it took u to get there. U are one amazing artist.

**Travis_Bourbeau** · December 15th, 2002

Damn im thinkiing he better hurry up ans start pulling that trigger or jump ! Nice work w

**jrr** · December 15th, 2002

lookin good jason. this is with painter right?

Batteram · December 16th, 2002

The colours you used in this piece are great. I also like the textures on the metal iron thingys.
One question: What is that blue soul coming out of that girl meant to be? Is she about to die and her soul has come out of her body or what?

**Fozzybar** · December 16th, 2002

Beautiful colors! I was thinking the same like Batteram...i mean, she isn't dead yet, but there is a soul flying away...?

I love this shiny blue light...:hearts:

retro002 · December 16th, 2002

hey jason,

maybe i'm a bit too curious, but may i ask what in particular the art director disliked?

thanks for posting

**Fipse** · December 16th, 2002

I really like this piece but at the moment I can´t imgagine it as a bookcover because of it´s wide format. Have you cropped it for the purpose of showing it to us?

The colours and figures are great as usual but somehow I´ve got some problems with the composition. It somehow topples to the right (but maybe it´s just me who sees it like this or it has to do with cropping). Furthermore it seems to me that the bosom of the hanging girl is a little off.

Hope you don´t mind critizising ´cause you´re a lot futher in drawing than I am. Overall great work as usual!

Fipse

**Oblio** · December 16th, 2002

Thank you for taking the time to post in our "finished" sector.

:p

It's nice to see you alive Master Jason - even though i don't like you caged - that offer i've made to Hermchen remains valid - 4 cabs with nice people for mr. artdirector? In a sec. Yes.. it will be 4.25$ (special discount)

a bit cheesy for my taste and definitely not your (loose) style - nevertheless thought.. a "concrete" piece. (it rocks)

Oblio

**Jason Manley** · December 16th, 2002

Hey

thanks for the kind words.

yes it is in painter

yes it is the girls spirit leaving as she will die.

no it is not cropped...the illustration was originally made to work as a two page spread and to take up part of the book cover format....sorta how a wide screen film only takes up part of a television screen...the top and bottom are black and blank...a place for all the text...but they are actually cropping in on the final cover...and using this as the two page spread in the middle.

no goon squad is necessary

the art director is very happy with this. It went thru lilterally dozens of revisions to be at that point. very very art directed.

yes the composition pulls to the right...that is the focal area...the man with the gun and the monsters coming at him....but if you notice how strong the blue is on the spirit...that is weighted enough to pull the eye back into the piece and across the format. a counter balance so to speak.....the composition is a very quick read...pull right to the focal area....has to be this way for marketing purposes...it is commercial illustration...hit em hard as they glance....then give the viewer enough secondary weights/focuses to keep them looking if they choose to...even try to make them look...(the bright color and strong value range)....even the color scheme is thought out for this...very dull to very bright....the goal of book illustration and package illustration is to make it POP off the shelf. that was what i tried to do for him. you do that with contrast of all aspects..value..color...line...and a quick reading composition.

I dont know if i was successful in this or not...but it was kept in mind the whole time...and discussed with the client to confirm that was indeed his goal.

laters

j

**Gorbay** · December 16th, 2002

Wow, it's good to see a new painting from Jason Manley... I liked the colors and the mood much and the poses and action looks great but the blue light reflection from the structure or the parts of the building looks a lot more purple .. like a ultraviolet light ... congrutulations. A good inspiration

**Loga4** · December 16th, 2002

Hoorey!
Glad that you decide to share that
awesome illustration with us!
I like everything about it,beside cognition that
that girl will die...buhhhaaaa.
Question-did you do just cover or
there is more illustration from you in
that book?If you did,hehehe,you know
what to do,right?

Success!

Sadclown · December 16th, 2002

Man, I know I'm gonna get so flamed for this but....

I dunno, it's a really good painting and all (of course it is, Jason Manley painted it for god's sake), but it just doesn't seem IMHO opinion to have the life and character your other work has. Just my opinion of course, and I'm by no means some amazing artist or anything (I'm not even a good artist), it just seems to me that when I looked at your earlier work I could see the characters' personalities. This just doesn't inspire that in me. Just my humble opinion.

**gekitsu** · December 16th, 2002

i'm with sadclown.

it's a great picture, it is well done, better than i'd do but it lacks a certain manley edge.

maybe it's the color pverkill with the soul's blue... i kinda don't like the "drive back across the image".
this is a in-your-face situation. there is movement, action, danger... and all at one spot.
the subtileness of her slowly pasing away looks a bit too evident, imho.

but hey... as long as the art director likes it (i.e. your purse likes, too)

funK · December 16th, 2002

no mystery everything in its spellt' out for you, ah well.... nice technical work.

funK, over

**hed|lamb** · December 16th, 2002

That's pretty awesome, especially the colors.

**PhilHolland** · December 16th, 2002

I like the overall painting, but it does seem "constrained". The monster design is very nice.
The girls expression and the clouds are also very
well done. The gun is awesome.
It must have been hard figuring out
how the blue glow was going to work on the rusted
girder.

I would be curious to know what type of art direction you recieved for this piece. Did they
tell you where to put the figures? Did they specify
a palette? Did they ask for the tilted pov?
One more question. How long did this take from
thumbnail to finished painting.

I'm picky but I do really like it.

Phil

**Hardcore** · December 16th, 2002

Very cool , very good !!! The girl spirit leaving reminds me of final fantasy...neat !! :chug:

**JoshuaTheJames** · December 16th, 2002

beautiful colours as always jason...

-Joshua

**Nordstrand, T** · December 17th, 2002

Sometimes, when I see great colour work, I feel like licking the screen. That sky, and the blue illuminated ironwork make my gums all juiced up. Really a delight for the eyes, Jaon. I see you retained some looseness in the downright imp(?), but I don't think the cover suffers at all from the tightness. The result really reminds me of Donato, dunno why. If you have some steps (and time) of the progress I am sure we would all like to see them. Great art!

**Lono** · December 17th, 2002

Woah,,, someone deleted my post.

guess the joke i cracked didnt go over well.

humor is gambeling.. this time the house won,, and i gotta walk away with empty pockets.

sorry.

-Lono

**Fipse** · December 17th, 2002

Thanks fo your comment, Jason. As a wrap around cover the composition makes a lot more sense to me.

I really know what it is like working with picky customers - ding it at the moment myself ... but somehow you´ve got to earn some money

Fipse

BTW What´s a goon squad? My dictionary is leaving me alone ...

**davi** · December 17th, 2002

Beautiful piece, but there is no doubt a large amount of art facism, i mean direction to this piece. Doesn't seem like your work at all actually, but you gotta do what you gotta do, great piece though. I can tell you could have done much better if you were allowed.

**Blackhawk** · December 17th, 2002

Hey Jason, this is spectacular work. The sky is absolutely beautiful. I have one minor crit though, and I would appreciate your input on it. His gun arm with the veins seems too busy, especially where the bicep branches into the forearm. (don't know the name, sorry

). The vein coming down into that spot from the bicep breaks it up too much in that spot to my eyes. The entire piece looks great, it's just my attention kept getting caught in that one area and it was vaguely bugging me.

Take care Jason, great to see you alive

**Boom** · December 17th, 2002

Very nice cover, Jason - I really like it. But I found your few thoughts on how to handle the subject, composition and 'popout'-requirement easily as interesting. Thanks abunch!

**bizarde** · December 17th, 2002

In deed very comercial, but stil I love it, especially the imagefinalbig

I love your style.

SilverStylus · December 17th, 2002

Fantastic work, as always Jason, and glad to see that you came out with such a beautiful work in spite of the heavy direction.

**Imp Head** · December 17th, 2002

Another nice piece Jason. Love the color range you've got going on. The orange of the rust plays nicely against the blue of the ghost and the sky and yet the entire piece holds together quite well.

Absolutely love the anatomy on the creatures and the face of the girl is quite well rendered. The guy leaves a little bit to be desired in a couple of spots, namely the girl holding arm and the legs are, to me, a little unfinished but the rest of him is spot on.

And as always you've really captured that Justin Sweet messiness that goes just to the point of definition without beating you over the head with it. Nice work!

There are a couple of areas I thought could use some improvement...

The first: The extreme tilt of the camera angle is giving me the pip. I think you've gone well past "Dynamic" and "Unnerving" and straight into "too much". I believe that that extreme a camera angle gives the whole picture a less than believable tilt. One solution that I thought would be quite interesting would be to turn the buildings in the background back to a more vertical position so we, the viewer, would be looking straight at a guy on a tilted building (do you like how I "tilted" the word tilted, lending credence to my argument? I RULE!) rather than looking a guy on a straight building through a tilted camera. I think this would load the picture with dynamic tension as the viewer flipped from the back to the front of the book until they finally figured out what was going on.

Secondly: You've got a whole lot of edge-to-edge spatial transgressions happening, (The most egregious being the claw/twisted metal/bite mark front and center near the guy's feet.) As you probably know tangents cause the image to "flatten" (Unfortunately I can't do a vertical scale to html type or I'd rule double plus good!) which can sap a lot of the dynamics out of a picture. They're easy to fix and I think will add a lot to the implied space.

And lastly: Though it is the back of the book and yes I understand the desire to just "Get the thing done", I feel that the left half of the image is severely lacking in any sort of visual impact. The two monstrosities are almost humorous in their stature and posess none of the drama and slavering, hideous, draw that the ones on the right do, lessening the impact of the tension you've developed on the right. I think by adding of a couple more creatures scaling the girders from below and to the left you'd give the sense that these two poor saps are really surrounded, instead of flanked while the flanker's retarded cousins look on.

Hope that helps. Rock on!

Brian

PS- How's Impressions Games treating you?

**dodowa** · December 17th, 2002

woooooo~~~:eek:

blue aureola of girl....meaningful!
maximum concept!!~

**Archangelus** · December 18th, 2002

To paraphrase what I told Feng...

"Manley is no ordinary demon...He is a god..."

I mean, do you people invoke dark majicks to get so good?!
For crying out loud...there's a price to pay for that you know?
It's called Hell! (lol) :p

Kudos to ya Jason. Excellent work...You rock!