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Submitted: June 17, 2007
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Realm of the Claw TPB Coverby ~davidyardin

Cartoons & Comics / Traditional Media / Comics / Pages

Realm of the Claw had a bit of a bumpy production, and release schedule. It was already intended as a bimonthly, since I was doing all the art myself, but it got delayed soon after we started.

Halfway through issue 2 (of 6) of the series, my Grandfather died and I took a couple of weeks off work. When I returned to work, they told me they were putting the book on hold. Then I was asked to finish off issue 2, and then it was put on hold again. This led to me starting work for Marvel on a Silver Surfer fill-in, and co-creating and pencilling District X.

After I left District X with the birth of my second daughter, I was asked to finish Realm of the Claw off. Balancing the new family dynamics, I really wanted a lighter workload than I had had pencilling, inking, and ink washing the first two issues, so I switched to just doing the pencils. I finished up all the interior art before heading back to Marvel for the Black Panther/X-Men crossover, but ROTC didn't get released until much later.

It ended up only the first two issues of the mini-series were printed as single issues. The remaining four issues only saw print in the complete collected edition late last year.

Anyway this was the last piece I did for the series. It was intended as the front cover for the TPB, but ended up being used for the back cover. I've included the layout done in pencil and marker, and my pencils. You can check out the colour version of this in Edgar Tadeo's

gallery [link]
(Ed coloured the last first and last four issues I believe, he's also got another ROTC page up there).

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~DarkBrainComics Nov 26, 2009 Professional Digital Artist

I really love the pencils here, a LOT. My personal preference is for inks to bring out the pencils and this piece I would love to have seen those wonderful pencils get more "airtime." Still, great shot - great work. Sorry about the circumstances around it though...

~davidyardin Feb 4, 2010 Professional

Thank you.

~Memed Jun 21, 2007 Professional Digital Artist

i like that very much and also very nice sketch ))

~davidyardin Jun 21, 2007 Professional

Thank you.

~Caridor Jun 19, 2007

Amazing! It looks like U grinding the pencil when U draw the shadows, don’t U?

~davidyardin Jun 19, 2007 Professional

Smaller areas I use the tip, for larger areas I use the side of the pencil lead.

~metalgearray09 Jun 18, 2007

oh, and sorry to hear about your grandfather.

~davidyardin Jun 18, 2007 Professional

Thanks, and yeah that was a few years back, so kinda gives you an idea how long this thing took to actually come out, even after I'd finished it.

~metalgearray09 Jun 18, 2007

btw, could I ask you about drawing tips? heh. As in, how'd you start out the page and the figures?

~davidyardin Jun 18, 2007 Professional

I think I got the idea for this cover after seeing a photo of a jungle rainforest canopy covered in clouds. I wanted something dark and mysterious surrounding these cat gods in their realm so I put Tsawna's (the main character of the series) figure in shadow in the foreground (prominent position obviously), almost just a silhoutte, perched high above the canopy (elevating him to mirror his importance in the realm), which is shrouded in mist and clouds.

When drawing the cat gods, as I mentioned in another deviation, I had the toys the book was based on for reference. With the toys, although they are very detailed, and were handy to have, they were limited as a reference point.

Whatever I'm working on, I always try and strive to represent whatever the original designer (or whoever came before me) was striving for, which may not always be fully apparent in the work that's been put out. With the ROTC stuff Stan had a lot of behind the scenes stuff on the making of the toys on his website, with designs and early sculpts, so that was insightful into what they were aiming for, and helped me better understand the decision making that led to the final sculpts of the toys.

It was obvious the characters were all based on real animals too, so again I try and source what the sculptors would have referenced i.e. real life big cats. I went out to the zoo, and sketched, and took a lot of photos of big cats (and a whole bunch of other animals I had to draw), as well as scoured the web for photo reference (especially of big cats in action, and pulling all sorts of facial expressions (the toys again were handy but limited to two head sculpts per figure)).

I then combine all of that with my knowledge of human anatomy, since these are cat people I'm drawing, and try and make all of that work together to make something that is somewhat beleivable (I hope LOL).

Hope that answers your questions.

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