Back in the saddle

Sorry to all those waiting for new covers, particularly the last instalment of the Black Guardian trilogy. I’ve had a busy, stressful month, most pertinently involving my computer playing up, so I’ve been offline for a while. Annoyingly it managed to crash while I had parts of the Enlightenment cover open and corrupted the files, meaning I’ll have to do a load of work again.

However, I have now availed myself of a shiny new Mac and finally transferred all my old data. So I can get back on the cover wagon and hope to have Enlightenment finished this weekend, followed by The Keys of Marinus, The Twin Dilemma, Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks before the new year.

Thanks for your patience.

Cheers
JC

Terminus

A productive weekend and so here is my cover for Terminus. Click here or on the thumbnail to go to Velvet Jacket to download. And click here for some background to its creation. As ever, I’d welcome any thoughts or suggestions you might have for this or any of my covers. Do leave a comment.

Ploughing straight on with Enlightenment, and then The Twin Dilemma. As for The Keys of Marinus, I haven’t dug through my archive of photos yet, but from memory most images I’ve seen are of Arbitan and the Voord, so I’ll probably wait until I have the disc and can see if the photo gallery unearths any unseen gems before deciding on the illustration for that cover.

Cheers
JC

Mawdryn Undead

Nearly as promised – just needed an extra evening to fine-tune the illustration and finish off the back cover – here’s my cover for Mawdryn Undead. Click on the thumbnail or here to go to Velvet Jacket and download, or here to read about its creation. Please do leave your comments – it’s always useful to know what others think for future covers.

Terminus and Enlightenment are both sketched out, so I hope to plough on with those this week.

Cheers
JC

Remembrance of the Daleks

Thanks to reader James Lyons, I was unexpectedly able to finish my Remembrance of the Daleks re-release cover this weekend after all. He very kindly took the initiative and the time to take a grab from the DVD’s photo gallery of the shot of the Doctor I needed and sent it to me. As this was the last element I was waiting for, I took a break from Mawdryn Undead to complete Remembrance. Click the thumbnail left or here to go to Velvet Jacket and download.

I’ll add an update on the main site tonight with some comparisons between the new and old Remembrance covers. My illustration for Mawdryn is done too, so I’ll try to finish that cover and upload it too.

Cheers
JC

LATEST  Note that the cover has changed slightly since Sunday evening – see the Updates page for details of why. Sorry if anyone who’s already printed needs to do so again. JC

Update

I had hoped to have at least one of my four outstanding covers done by now (given that’ll it’ll be five once Twin Dilemma is released next week), so here’s a quick update of where things stand.

As anticipated, I had a go at updating my Remembrance of the Daleks cover for the extra-extras re-release. The main thing I wanted to improve was the picture of the Doctor, as originally I could only find a very grainy copy of that photo. I thought I’d come across a better one in the meantime, but now I can’t find it or was mistaken. So although I’ve done some work recreating the background elements, I’ve decided to wait until I get the new disc itself to see if the photo gallery has what I need – and that probably won’t be for a while until it has dropped in price.

That means I can plough on with the Black Guardian Trilogy boxset covers. These are all sketched out and I have an idea of which images I want to use and, hopefully, where to find them. I plan to make a start this weekend and would hope to have at least one available by Monday – can’t afford to double-dip at full price.

Cheers
JC

The War Games

My cover for The War Games is now available to download from Velvet Jacket.

Read about its creation here – and how I learned that trying to cut corners really is a false economy, and if you want your art to look as good as you can make it, you really do have to put in the work!

Hoping to move swiftly on to the Black Guardian trilogy, although I may slip my updated Remembrance cover in first as I don’t anticipate that being a big job (famous last words).

Cheers
JC

Delta and the Bannermen

At last, here’s my cover for Delta and the Bannermen! Click the thumbnail to download. Dunno if you’ll think it worth the wait – this really is one of my all-time turkeys, I’m afraid, and I just don’t connect with the story at all, making it tricky to get the right vibe for a cover. So I kept it fairly simple in the end.

Ploughing on with The War Games now, although picture sources aren’t extensive. Can’t decide whether to resist going with a triangular ‘map’ background/framework cos every else uses it or not…

Cheers, JC

Getting back on track

Home and work life have been restricting – well, eliminating – my time for working on covers. However, things are quieting down now and I’ll dedicate some time to catching up on the backlog – Delta and War Games are both on the drawing board. And I will be refreshing my Remembrance of the Daleks cover for the newly released version.

Cheers
JC

The War Games – BBC cover

Doctor Who Online has today posted the cover the July’s DVD release, The War Games – not quite the finished version it seems as it’s lacking the ‘Troughton Years’ text from the bottom bar, but presumably the artwork is the finished thing. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger version at DWO.

My first impressions are favourable. Oddly for what, in retrospect, is a milestone story, there seem to be few photos taken during production of The War Games – and the use here of mostly very familiar shots doesn’t raise my hopes that the disc’s photo gallery will turn up some unseen gems.

The best images of the Doctor do seem to be those of him, Jamie and Zoe crouching in the mud, as used here (and, if I remember correctly, on the video cover) where his body’s at a slightly awkward angle. Nice to see the War Chief make an appearance though, thanks to the cache of photos DWM turned up a few years ago. And I like the explosion added behind the Roman soldies – livens up a much-seen shot very effectively.

I can never decide whether the Time Lords deserve space on the cover – yes, it’s their first, iconic appearance, but they’re hardly integral to the vast majority of the story. Jamie and Zoe feel a little awkwardly placed too, but I like the use of the war table motif. The colouring is nice, although I’d have gone for a more earthy tone.

All in all, one of the best covers we’ve had this year.

The Deadly Assassin

My cover for The Deadly Assassin is now available for download from Velvet Jacket – click on the thumbnail to go to the site.

Pretty straightforward cover given the Doctor and the Master really have to be the key elements. Read more about my thoughts behind the design here. And I’ve added an Updates entry for Image of the Fendahl here – totally forgot about that one!

Love to hear your comments.

Cheers, JC