Velocity Cover Colors

This is the colored version of the Velocity #4 fan cover that I posted near the beginning of this year.

As of this writing, the actual issue has been scheduled for release this coming Wednesday. The release was actually delayed for the past few months, but I've had no problem waiting on account of one of my favorite characters being paired up with one of my favorite artists! Sometimes though, it seemed as if this book was waiting for me to actually get around to coloring this pic before it finally came out!

Since I doubt that this actually fits with the actual plot of the comic, I think I can discuss the concept of this pic. The main plot of the Velocity miniseries has Velocity and her Cyberforce teammates infected with a virus designed to kill them all within an hour. With the team split up in different locations, the virus was administered by robotic clones of Velocity, while the real Velocity was captured and infected by the Big Bad himself. Velocity escapes, and has just one hour to cure her teammates and herself, so the miniseries covers the events of one hour using the perspective of a super-speedster.

My concept is based off of the robotic Velocity clones that made their appearance in the beginning of the story, but didn't have a real role after they infected the different Cyberforce members. Since the cure Velocity gets completely incapacitates the user while it eliminates the virus, she's forced to administer the cure to her teammates before she herself takes the final dose.

For this cover, I imagined that, with the team cured, and one dose remains, the enemy unleashes the army of robot clones to ensure that Velocity dies. A furious fight takes place, with Velocity fighting her way through her copies as she desperately tries to catch the cure, which was knocked free in the confusion!

Considering the events of #3, I seriously doubt that my idea will actually take place, but I am seriously looking forward to seeing how it all plays out in the end!

Ok, fan-mode off! This was colored by first creating a grayscale rendering of the entire piece, then applying colors over that. After the basic colors were placed, I did some additional rendering in color on the "main" Velocity to fix her up a bit more. I also did some editing on her face, since it was looking a little too wide, proportionally. Once I was satisfied with the colors, I went on to add glowing blur effects to the characters, as well as the foreground and background.

My personal version even has a dummied version of the title logo, complete with issue number and credits, so it looks a lot like an alternative cover. Obviously, since that version has official logos, I can't post it online.

EDIT: I finally got ahold of the final issue of the mini-series, and I have to say that it was definitely worth the wait. Without giving away too much, the story didn't touch on what I had imagined in my drawing, but it definitely covered the elements that I thought were largely ignored by the other issues. The manner the story finally addressed those elements was something I have to admit, I would never have thought of, and was the main reason why the wait for this book was well worth it, at least to me.

Pencils and Inks on A4 Vellum Board, colors on Photoshop CS3 with a Genius G-Pen 450.

Velocity and all related characters by Top Cow
Original Art by Jon Mallari