Last year for Pride Month, Magic: the Gathering released a collection called Pride Across the Multiverse. Since that time of year has come around again, I wanted to share a little of the process behind the artwork I contributed to the set.

Since this was a small, special set, the art style was more wide open. Art director Stephanie Cheung was aware of the more linework-based style I’ve been using in some of my other work in children’s books and comics, and suggested I work in that style.

The assignment was to show the existing trans woman character, Alesha, helping up a younger trans man during a training session. The theme was meant to represent the older generation helping the younger.

Here’s the sketch, done on vellum. The placement of the elements needed to be designed around the text blocks

For the next step, Stephanie had me tilt the composition differently, to place more emphasis on the character Alesha, the standing figure who is helping her younger sparring partner up.

The updated sketch was then was scanned, blown up, traced and refined on another piece of vellum, which was then taped to the back of a piece of Moleskine paper. With the help of a lightbox, I then drew the clean lines using a 10B pencil.

Finally, I did the watercolors in Photoshop.

There is currently a Kickstarter to produce playmats featuring the Pride collection artwork, and prints are available from my website.