GI JOE: Cobra inks, part 2 of 3...

Here is the second part of the 3 part cover. Since I was allowed to pick and choose which characters to use, I had to put Flint and Lady Jaye in there pretty prominently. Scarlett, I wanted to balance the Duke I had up top. In the cartoon Duke and Scarlett were more of an item. In the comic it's been suggested that they had a past, though now Scarlett it pretty much devoted to Snake Eyes. I know...drama.

For me the "it" couple was always Flint and Lady Jaye. I also wanted to include characters that have gotten face time in the books with IDW, but that I haven't had the chance to draw much or at all. So then I include Snow Job (that was for you Gary!), Zartan, and Firefly.

Originally in the layout, I had a group of Skystikers in the upper left. My favorite toy, maybe of all time, the GI JOE F-14 jet. As I was combining the covers I realized I had a little Helix shooting off to the side in the first part of the covers. It just looked like she was a little fairy shooting Mr. Bludd unless I gave her something to be directing the fire. So again I start including more figures into this cover. I wasn't able to fit in the basic Cobra Troopers I wanted in the bottom right of cover 1, so it made sense to include them here.

The other change was to move Flint's gun arm more centered so he was more completely on the cover. Another challenge was making sure these images combined, but also felt like stand alone covers in their compositions.

Here's the final inks on part 2 of the cover. I believe this was going on the Cobra issue, but I'm not sure.

GI JOE: Cobra 17 (I think) Inks - 420

Here is the cover so far with Part 1 combined with Part 2. 

For comments and questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com