FAILED-PROJECT FRIDAY: EMPOWERED AND THE MASK CITY MELTDOWN (pt.3): Complete variant cover WORK STAGES! (Patreon)

UPDATE: This is technically a repost of sorts, but given that the cover image above was, I think, my very first Patreon post way back in 2019, I'm hoping you'll bear with me.

So!

The image above would've been my variant cover for issue #1 of an abortive two-part Guest Artist miniseries titled Empowered and the Mask City Meltdown, which I initially wrote with one particular artist in mind back in 2017 or so; alas, that first artist didn't end up working on it, and neither did the next artist I pitched it to. After that, I abandoned the project entirely, though I did briefly consider drawing it myself as part of Empowered vol. 12, a plan which was soon abandoned in turn as I had no interest whatsoever in drawing all the many, many urban environments this story would've required.

Howeva, guess what? I've decided I'm going to begin serializing Empowered and the Mask City Meltdown on this here Patreon later on in the month, using my freakishly tight three-color(!) page roughs and excerpts from my full scripts for the two issues. Yay? (FWIW, the story does feature some funky revelations about the nature of Emp's nameless city, and also hints at a change to the series' status quo that's a key feature of Empowered vol. 12.

Anyhoo!

Above are the complete Work Stages on my planned variant cover for the doomed miniseries, from finished pencils to final colors by Ryan Kinnaird. As you'll eventually see when I start serializing the story here, this cover illo's concept is almost exactly wrong, as the story's about an ever-changing city, not an ever-changing Emp. But guess what, folks? As mentioned above, I had no interest in drawing a complex urban environment that would've been in line with the actual narrative; instead, I worked in a fun li'l dose of life drawing, as many or most of the "wee Emp" images are referenced from action photos of female athletes and models.

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: Not sure, TBH, as my post buffer is presently nonexistent, but you can rest assured that something will be going up on Monday.