Supergirl Sketch Cover by Jeff Moy

Jeff did this piece for fun (at a convention, I believe) and threw it up in his WhatNot shop, and I spent the next half a year staring at it and hoping I could work it into my budget at some point. I'm very happy that the day has finally come, and now I'm the proud owner of one of the most beautiful sketch covers I've ever seen!

A note about sketch covers: I've always preferred to get my art on your standard piece of paper, but I know a lot of collectors prefer sketch covers, and I've always been curious why. My boyfriend suggested part of it was because collectors like the idea of owning a comic with a unique or personalized cover that's reminiscent of a published one. You don't see it with every sketch cover, since a lot of them end up with remarques or background-less sketches, but when I saw this one here, I realized it was a very good point. I love that the art could absolutely double as the actual cover for the comic, since it has a full background and a little bit of a "narrative" going on.

Jeff always does such a good job with Supergirl, no matter which variant of her he's drawing. She looks exactly as she ought to - bright and happy and loving the experience of using her powers. This is her design from Superman: The Animated Series, which I've found has always meshed well with Jeff's style. He's always bringing his A-game when it comes to shading, but I think this one is something special (my favourite bit is how much detail went into shading her gloves!). The pose is super cute, too - I choose to believe she's waving at you and not saluting, since technically she's using the wrong hand! - and it's pretty awesome that this works out to be a full-figure sketch cover with a full background, too.

The background is my favourite part, for sure. It might have something to do with the fact that blue and green are my favourite colours, and that I love space backgrounds. I love how Jeff coloured the Earth, using a sort of stippling technique to add some detail without having to get ridiculously intricate with it, and I think it acts almost like a lens focus technique in a movie, where Supergirl is kept fully in focus while the background is a bit blurrier. The marker blending technique used to give the Earth a bit of a blue glow against the blackness of space is pretty cool, too!