My youngest brother lives in Portland, OR and recently bought a house there. My wife, mother, and I decided to fly up to visit and see the house. It'd been six years since Kathy and I had been there.
I was to meet Kathy and Mom in Portland since I was in the Boston area on business.
Sadly, my middle daughter had an emergency appendectomy (is there any other kind?) and Kathy could not make the trip.
While in Portland, I talked my brother, his girlfriend, and my mom into joining me at the
Rose City Comic Convention which was conveniently located at my hotel - amazing how these things happen!
At the show, I met Aaron and looked at a few pieces of his new Sword of Sorcery book - covers for issues 1 & 2 and a rejected cover for issue 1. He'd completed the cover and DC decided late that they wanted all of the covers for that "wave" of the new 52 to have the characters leaping toward the reader.
I really liked them especially the rejected cover; I thought then and still do that it was a better image. However, I was unwilling to pop for the piece since it was out of my impulse buy range.
Happily, Kathy decided that our 30th Anniversary would be a good time to get it!
When I first saw it, I assumed it was fine pencil work and uninked.Then, I read the top of the piece where Aaron is listed as the inker. So, I looked again and thought that must be the sharpest ink pen in the world. I could of course do a smudge test, but...
Aaron wrote me later and said:
Alex- Just so you know, this piece is not inked, It is just very tight pencils. I do my under drawing with blue pencil but over the top to that is my penciling. This got changed before I ever got to the inking stage. Thanks again for the purchase! -Aaron Lopresti
He used a very fine point and the detail is striking and as I mentioned the pencil is so tight I was fooled. Lovely work if I may say so.
I'm very happy with it and like it a lot more than what I got her - diamond ear rings - They look nice on her, but I'm not ready to pierce my ears. :)
PS. Aaron also wrote when I asked about how the published cover was created
On your second question- I light tabled the background and pile of bodies from the piece you have and then added a new Amethyst.
So this is the original of the published cover - sort of. :)
PPS. If you like Amethyst, you might like to see:
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