Wonder Woman

Bilquis Evely pushes the character’s realism on her latest Wonder Woman cover.

Workshops

When I start a new project, my first thoughts are usually, “What should this illustration look like, and what drawing style should I use?”

Usually, we have a basic idea for the covers based on the stories, but since this was my first cover for the new arc of the series, DC asked me to do a “kick-off” cover. It would need to show what aspects of the character appeal to me, which brings me back to my point about the style.

I love Wonder Woman – she has so many sides! She’s a heroine, a warrior, there’s a divinity quality to her, and yet she’s very human, and this gives me several references to explore. So, my idea for the cover and for the entire book was to distil all those iconic aspects of the character into a single illustration, without making it a mess of influences.

My majors references were Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, FrancoBelgian comics books and artists such as Alex Toth and José Luis García-López, who are very good at drawing human bodies and casual scenes, because there’s a focus on the humanity of all the characters in the Wonder Woman comics. It’s heroic and it’s fantasy, yes, but it’s still grounded, which is why I avoid stylised, unnatural figure poses.