Bunt! cover process (Patreon)

Aside from the stress-planning, the OTHER reason I'm able to get back to RR and Sakana this year is because THE GRAPHIC NOVEL I MADE WITH NGOZI IS BASICALLY DONE. 🎉🎉🎉

It's called BUNT!, and it already has it's own listing on a few different bookselling sites! (even though I'm credited as *debut (???) artist Madeline Rupert*...I guess technically this is my first ogn with a publisher. Let's forget the webcomics and those 500ish pages of Regular Show and Adventure Time comics ever happened...)

Anyways, you can find the listing here!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250193513/bunt

And the synopsis:

Molly Bauer's first year of college is not the picture-perfect piece of art she'd always envisioned. On day one at PICA, Molly discovers that—through some horrible twist of fate—her full-ride scholarship has vanished! But the ancient texts (PICA's dusty financial aid documents) reveal a loophole. If Molly and 9 other art students win a single game of softball, they'll receive a massive athletic scholarship. Can Molly's crew of ragtag artists succeed in softball without dropping the ball?

The author of the New York Times best-selling Check, Please series, Ngozi Ukazu returns with debut artist Madeline Rupert to bring an energetic young adult story about authenticity, old vs. new, and college failure. It also poses the question: “Is art school worth it?”

I wanted to take a minute to show you some of the process that went into figuring out the cover! It's not quite finished yet (I'll let you find it on store shelves to get the finalized experience!)

First, they asked me to submit whatever ideas popped into my head, so I came up with a few that I thought really sold the teammates! friendship! aspect of the book.

They weren't loving these lol, so I tried the overworked college student! angle:

We were getting somewhere! They liked the overwhelmed angle, but they wanted me to focus on Molly alone, so the cover would be more in line with other books in First Second's YA collection.

C was the first real standout in the bunch for the design team, so they asked me to keep the crop close in on her but in a more 'determined' pose.

E was another favorite, but it needed a liiiiiiittle bit more:

AND FINALLY, C in this batch was the winner!

Next I had to draw the actual thing.

And the final art!

The background is a neon yellow/green because that's the color of a softball, and we're hoping to use special neon ink in print!

Beyond this colored version, I did some extra rim lighting to make it fit with the very harsh bg color. There's also a few more art tweaks (I forgot to draw her other braid lol) and hand-lettered text I have to make to get it ready to go to print, but this is the general idea! I hope you're excited to read it! I'M EXCITED IT'S DONE!! Ngozi and I have been working together on this project since 2018! The same year RR started! It's a huge relief to finally see it off into the world!