I turned in the cover art for Usagi Yojimbo: Legends. The book will be in the same format as the Saga books--three trades collected into one big omnibus. Whereas the Saga books have been reprinting the ongoing Usagi stories, Legends will print stand along Usagi projects--Yokai, a watercolored original full color graphic novel; Senso, a mini-series that takes place many years after the current Usagi timeline and; Space Usagi, that takes place many generations after.

I also took a different approach to the art. A Saga cover depicted a single scene but, because the Legends stories cover a wide range from ghosts to science fantasy, I chose to include elements from all the stories.

On 4-ply 500 series cold press Strathmore bristol.

Very rough pencils. I am just working with shapes and ideas here. I used a 0.3 mm 2H mechanical pencil.



My ideas are getting more solidified.



Finished pencils using a 0.5 HB mechanical pencil.



Inked with a Koh-i-noor Art Pen, which was discontinued many years ago. The ink I used is a mixture of a number of inks, because my preferred brand had changed their formula.

I changed the fox fire at the top from just a head to its entire body. Note that the top fifth of the art will be trimmed off for the trade collection to accommodate a title banner. This is done for all the Saga books as well.



I masked off the figures, using a homemade frisket.



The background was painted with watercolors and a 1 inch flat brush.



The mask was peeled off.



Working throughout the art, using watercolors.





The fox was one of the last things I worked on, and used white watercolor to add a glow around it. I took some of the background color and darkened the area around Usagi to make him pop out a bit more.