Buy My Cover: E.J. Su

Another of the IDW artists has joined me today on a segment I like to call, "BUY MY COVER!" My guest today is not only one of the cover artists for next month's Transformers: Infiltration; he is also the penciler for the entire series. Ladies, gentlemen, children of all ages, please welcome IDW artist: E.J. Su!

Professor Smooth: Hey EJ, thanks for joining us today.

E.J. Su: Hello Professor, thanks for having me.

Professor Smooth: Let’s start off with the contents of the cover itself. Why did you choose Ratchet for the cover of the first issue?

E.J. Su: The idea of my covers were to have a panoramic view of battle of 3 Autobots and 3 Decepticons divided up into 6 covers through out the Infiltration mini. Since Ratchet is taking a prominent role in the first issue, he will be portraited in the first issue and Runabout, who has a big role on issue#2, will come on the next issue cover. Ideally, we wanted to have the Bots and Cons alternating the covers between issues.

Professor Smooth: How did the cover to Transformers: Infiltration #1 go from an idea in your head to one of the four (regular) covers we’ll all have the option of adding to our collections in January? What’s that process like?

E.J. Su: It's rather a new process for me. All my Infiltration covers will be painted digitally from scratch. The only thing on paper was a very sketchy rough of the entire layout for approval, it was no bigger than 10" wide with 6 covers across, it was rough to a point that they are almost just stick figures, but they worked well as composition study. I scan this rough into computer and start to slapping bold primary colors on top of it. Along the way, I make corrections on porportion, shapes, perspective and poses. The end results are not quite the same as the original rough, but the basic ideas are there. Since I didn't do the entire scene altogether, I found myself alter my techniques slightly different between covers, and I find better ways of doing things as I go along, which I would normally go back and re-touch the previous covers if they haven't gone to the printer.

Professor Smooth: Some fans might be thinking to themselves, “I really like all of the IDW artists, so I’ll buy at least one cover from each of them.” If an international Transfan like Killer Mel from Honduras is going to pay 8-10 USD for one of your covers, which one of your Infiltration covers do you think he should buy?

E.J. Su: I think he/she should buy whichever cover that appeal to him/her. Everyone has different taste, and every one of our covers look to be offering a unique perspective. However; I hope everyone gets to see these covers in person, the high compression ratio internet images are usually deceiving.

Professor Smooth: Final Question: Why should fans Buy Your Cover?

E.J. Su: I think unique thing about my cover is that they are painted rather than with traditional way of penciling, inking and coloring process. I am trying my best to keep up with all the other TF comic veterans, please give the new guy a chance. Besides, if you ever want to trash certain silver porsche but couldn't, at least you can see it get trashed on the cover.

Professor Smooth: Thanks for joining us! E.J. Su, everybody! His cover for Transformers: Infiltration #1 goes on sale next month along with covers by Andrew Wildman, Guido Guidi, James Raiz, as well as a special edition variant by Don Figueroa. Remember, Seibertron.com will be giving away free copies of the Botcon Variant of E.J Su's Transformers 0 very soon. Stay tuned to Seibertron.com to find out how you can win a copy!

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