This was one of my first real digital drawings from Advanced Illustration class. This was for a book cover called The Teeth of the Wolf, written by Harmon Dallas. This tells the story of three Texas Rangers looking for seven serial killers from the 1880s and how they chased them across the Southwestern part of the United States and Mexico. The first board is where I got my inspiration, but mostly what came to my head. I got most of this from a movie, Tombstone, and a song performed by Johnny Cash called Ghost Riders in the Sky.
The book tells of three Texas Rangers, so I tried to add some diversity to their looks for that period change it up a little bit, and stick to what you might have seen in that area with it being in the 1880’s. So, one former Union soldier, an Apache warrior, and a cowboy. Now the villains were kinda hard. Instead of them being human I made them into shadows/ silhouettes that rode the clouds when a bad storm was coming. Johnny Cash describes them pretty well in the song Ghost Riders in the Sky. First, he describes the horses and cattle they are riding then the villains!
“Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel, Their horns were black and shiny, and their hot breath he could feel. A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky, for he saw the riders coming hard and heard their mournful cry.”
“Their faces gaunt, Their eyes were blurred, Their shirts all soaked in sweat… Cause we got to ride forever on that range up in the sky, on horses snorting fire as they ride on hear their cry.”
I also went with a setting of sun colors but a stormy cloud on the horizon!
I got my ideas sketches from watching a lot of Tombstone, Young Guns, and True Grit. Not only that but mostly like I stated before a Johnny Cash song called Ghost Riders in the Sky. I just put all that together and these are what came out.
I got my ideas sketches from watching a lot of Tombstone, Young Guns, and True Grit. Not only that but mostly like I stated before a Johnny Cash song called Ghost Riders in the Sky. I just put all that together and these are what came out.
I wanted to go with a traditional look for a Western, while at the same time drawing away from the viewer not knowing that it is more of a horror. The Western Normal is the font I went with.
The final came out great! I have three first-generation Texas Rangers on how I think they would have looked from the 1880s. I got my inspiration for these characters from left to right from famous people like Waylon Jennings a former country singer. Josh Brolin from the movie No Country for Old Men, and then Littlefoot who played Little Bear from The Indian in the Cupboard movie. I have these rangers looking at the viewer as if they were a victim from one of the towns that they come across in the story. I don’t want to give much away but these guys are the good guys of the story with different backgrounds from that time in America. And they come together to stop a curse that runs that part of America, killing small towns and travelers alike.
