Time-Flight & Arc of Infinity

Finally up to date again with my covers (in fact, a little ahead as 'The Time Warrior' is completed too, but you'll have to wait till next month for that one). Just had to wait for the discs to be released to get some pictures for the back cover - had trouble finding good-quality colour pics for both these stories.

'Time-Flight' was the worse, image wise, so I started with 'Arc' as I knew I had the picture of Hedin I wanted to use. He took a lot of touching up, though, and has ended up looking a bit like Ian McKellan to my eyes (as Magneto in that hat). Think of it as could-have-been alternative casting perhaps. Omega I knew would have more effects over him so I got away with a lesser-quality shot of him, although it took some trial and error to get the curvature of the Arc of Infinity just right. Trickiest was the Doctor, again because hi-res shots were hard to come by. I briefly considered scanning the photo from the front of the Target novel, but it was smaller than I remembered and really is appallingly cut out. So I had to enlarge a shot from Tragical History Tour and touch it up. That's not so bad for the fifth Doctor as his costume has plenty of edges (like the red piping of his jacket) that I can paint alpha channels for and fill in with careful cloning. A shot of Amsterdam for the background finished it off.

So to 'Time-Flight'. That photo of Kalid was the only decent colour one I could find, so unsurprised but a little disappointed to see it used on the official cover too. I hope I've incorporated it rather more skillfully, however, improving the sharpness and adjusting colours to make his head and hands stand out from his costume more. The Doctor was easier this time as DWM has printed full-page shots of him back-to-back with the Master several times. The one I used was very yellow-biased, though, so I've tried to correct that. A search on Google produced a few usable Concorde images, so I picked one that gave a good angle on the iconic nose, rather than a head-on one. The livery was all wrong, of course, so I painted it out and was going to leave the plane all white. But on receiving the discs, there were a few shots of the actual Concorde used, so I was able to lift some of the decals for a closer tie-in, which actually improved the image.

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