Zelbosa Cover Art/Typography process (Patreon)

EDIT 06/30: I've added a couple more images from the process inks/flats. I wasn't able to spread this process out quite like I wanted because June totally got away from me. In order to keep tho keep the look authentic to the whole Edmund Dulac style I kinda crushed down the value range from where the actual layers are with my post processing technique. I added a bit more info below about the typography/logo treatment!

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Hello there neighbor, time to get going on the cover art while I finish up the coloring. I find it's always nice to have at least two things going at the same time so I don't get too stuck on any given project. I did a handful of thumbnail sketches for the cover. Trying to find a balance between horny and Dulac elegance.

I try to be pretty straightforward with covers. I like for them to tell you something about the visuals of the book, the relationship of the characters, but also, the purpose of the cover is to get people to click it, which means make it as horny as possible. 

The main thing I hope to get across is that this is about size difference, water, muscles and hair, haha. Having Urbosa lifting up Zelda felt like a natural way to show that, plus it gives Urbosa a good reason to flexxxxxxx. <3 

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I always spend way too long on my typography and logos. I don't have a ton of practice with typography since I mostly stick to illustration, but I do know when I see something I like. I mostly stole from Ivan Bilibin covers since they're pretty typography heavy. These were some that I tried to integrate:

I mostly focused on some of the letter shapes that make it feel more 'Eastern.' The little calligraphic tails on letters and curves in certain places really do it. 

I didn't want to get too ornamental with it because it needs to be legible, and I knew I wanted to add the Silent Princess flower as a kinda Art Deco motif, plus a little gold leafy tone to the letters.

I ended up running with a font in my adobe type collection called Bely, which I rasterized and changed little bits. Some a lot, some a little. The biggest changes were to the capital B's and lowercase A. I looooved the capital A from that first reference so I just decided to kinda shorten it for the lowercase form.

Somewhere along the way I started getting really annoyed with the color orange in the text and I just couldn't figure out why, it just felt dirty--then I realized. -_-

AFSDWJHLKDJHDS this is what I hate about typography, there are endless subliminal references from the logos we see every day. At least I realized it before I finished, otherwise you might all be inexplicably craving $5 pizzas right now.

And I'm sure this is the only time you'll ever see the Little Caesars logo brought up in a discussion of Legend of Zelda porn. You're...welcome? Truly an enriching experience for all. 

Thank you for your kind support, I hope you enjoyed seeing a bit more into the process!