Uncanny X-Men Tribute Variant

By Me, After Byrne.

The Uncanny X-Men #141 by John Byrne

A while ago, Marvel reached out to me about participating in a variant cover event that would feature a current group of artists by having them homage classic covers, and I agreed to come onboard because I thought it would be a fun challenge.

This cover for The Uncanny X-Men #141 by John Byrne is possibly one of the most well-known and recognizable covers in comics history, and it’s been homaged many times by a wide range of ultra-talented artists, so needless to say I was a little intimidated. I did my best to give it the attention it deserved, so hopefully I did it justice! (I even went so far as to draw characters on that background poster knowing full well that they’d just be getting covered up, lol—truly clownish behavior on my part 🤡 but at least you get to see those hidden parts further down in this post!)

My version

Pencils (I didn’t submit thumbnails for this one and kept the pencils tight because there was no ambiguity about where the final art was headed—it’s an homage, after all.)

Pencils for the background poster

Base colors + simple shading

Final tone corrections

W/ type effects

Corner Box at full size

Yes, if I was a sane and normal human being I probably would have just reused the finished drawings of these characters I did on the poster, but because I wanted it to have a more solid/cel-shaded look in order to mirror the original cover, I chose to completely re-ink them with a hard brush and give them all a punchier palette, complete with halftones. Definitely more components than I usually complete for my covers, but it was fun (and I think worthwhile in the end!)