COVER THEME for kateprydes
JANUARY 22, 2025

THEME

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HIGHLIGHTS

COVER (HALL OF MIRRORS)

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COVER (STARSICK)

ALT. VERSION

i made these covers over a week ago now (i think... i'm wally west as fuck, i'm travelling through time, i have no idea where i am or what i'm doing) but like with pretty much all of my cover themes, i put off writing the accompanying text / star-standard ramble. usually i post a few other updates before locking in for a big one, but i've actually procrastinated so much on lou's theme that we've passed like. five updates? since i actually made this set. (if i recall correctly, i made these before DOWNWARD SPIRAL for emma. so the chronological order of this lotto is fucked, big time.)

i don't know why i delayed for so long considering this is a relatively small set of covers in comparison to others i've made recently. lou's theme is comprised of three stories: HALL OF MIRRORS (HOM), a scott summers / cyclops fic; CAROUSEL, a wally west au; and STARSICK, a young justice dick grayson fic. the two "highlights" for this update are HOM and STARSICK but i'll briefly touch on CAROUSEL, too.

the only parameters i really had for these covers were the colour schemes, so in terms of faceclaims, font choice, general direction, et cetera, i had free rein. for HOM, lou did not specifically request a comic cover, but since i adore scott summers and haven't had many opportunities to make comic covers for him, i decided to do so for lou. i wanted to adhere to the carnival-y, stage magic-type vibe evoked by the HOM title, so i chose zatanna as the comic fc for the oc. i took notes from zatanna's own covers and branding, and used an art deco-esque font for the main text of the cover; as well as a fixed-width font for all miscellaneous text and subtitling, to match the "destiny of x" x-men branding used.

STARSICK's set faceclaim for the oc was kitty pryde / shadowcat, but i was given permission to use a different character if i saw fit. i did, since kitty was really challenging to find suitable resources for. the first alternative faceclaim, seen in the main STARSICK cover, was rogue. she has a lot of bust-up comic covers which went really well with the ones i wanted to use for dick—i wanted the nightwing symbol to be in full view.

the alt. version uses betsy braddock / captain britain (insane name, but i'd rather betsy as captain britain than psylocke lol) who i saw on the STARSICK pinterest board provided to me by lou. both of these covers leaned into a cosmic aesthetic, complete with my favourite astronomy illustrations and deep, warm blues.

CAROUSEL was cooked four times in pepto bismol (i don't even know if we have that in australia lol) but i did like how it ended up. every man and his dog uses the same few photos of redheaded men on pinterest for wally, so i wanted to do something different. i ultimately ended up colouring a strawberry-blond-haired model's hair to be darker and slightly more red. that model was giles surridge, an english actor and model on instagram. see below:

even without the super-red hair, i think he suits wally really well. (if you use this faceclaim, please credit me!) the CAROUSEL cover was made by using a photo of giles and incorporating a carousel; then duplicating the original, carousel-less image and changing its opacity to emulate the shakiness and general chaos we see in most portrayals of the flash's superspeed. add some light leaks and boom, you're good to go. like i said, it's a bit cooked, but so is wally, so...

as always, these covers come in a couple different colour schemes. lou's had them all for like... a week now, so 😭 thanks for reading, guys! and as always, thank you for your support!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!