5 Ronin Wolverine is #1 issue in a five-issue weekly-shipping limited series, written by Peter Milligan and drawn by Tomm Coker, out in March from
Marvel.
Wolverine cover is first one I did of the serie, and to be true, I was a little insecure with both technique and composition, was by far one I used more time with.
I based main Wolverine picture on
Toshirō Mifune in Yojimbo. Not so happy with result, though, and I did not use references on next covers, where I think characters look much better.
This is final cover sketch.
Main picture is done in whased inks (left). Pencil for aditional figure lines and Samurai armor, and inks for some kind of nature Sumie paints (right).


Then, put it all together and turn colors in Photoshop.
I wanted to play with two main blocks of texts, one for the serie title (5 Ronin) and another for the character of the issue. I thought a quote of the charater will give some personality to each cover. I know what you are thinking, it had to be a serif typeface, and yes, you are right, I used a serif typeface.
I also add japanese numbers on top of the character name and I had the chance of turning Marvel logo into main color of the cover.
