Comic Book Cover: Devil’s Rock

The comic book “Devil’s Rock” (“Diablova Skala” in original) is a reimagination of legend about how medieval Castle of Ľubovňa came to existence. According to the tale, a young man made a deal with the local which to help him build the castle out of thin air—it was the only way he could marry the woman of his dreams. Father of the bride decided that he will only give his daughter to the man who can build the entire castle in one night.

The young man broke his side of the deal and instead of surrendering his soul to the which he begged the heavens for forgiveness. He was granted his wish and out of spite, the which has asked the devil to lift a giant rock and drop it on the castle.

The comic book was sponsored by the castle museum and I was commissioned to create a cover illustration for it. After multiple versions and halted production of the whole comic book, I was finally asked to finish the cover design. Since I had not seen the inside of the comic book until the very end of the production process, the character design and art style of the cover is quite different.

Even though the first drafts were aiming for simpler art style, the final result eventually became much more layered and complex—and bombastic. The reason for this was simply the fact that timeframe between starting this project and finishing it was almost two years.

After revisiting the old illustration, I was struggling with the fact that I don’t feel this represents my current skillset, yet there is not enough time to start over. Tweaking a few details, I have decided to work on lighting and atmosphere rather than redo the entire composition.

The final result therefore moved even further from my original vision, however gained a new life entirely. After making my peace with the fact I need to wrap up a project that was forgotten for so long, the wish to finish my first comic book cover took over and the result got published in summer of 2016.