Love Begins
Kiana Khansmith
Claire Keane
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
ojovivo
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DEAR READER
titsay
@theartofmadeline
Sade Olutola
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Stranger Things
Andulka
izzy's playlists!
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
Keni
sheepfilms
Product Placement
AnasAbdin
hello vonnie
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@patchmiller
✨Just one month to go before #uv2018 is open for submissions!✨ No bones about it, this is an amazing opportunity to get your work right in front of some of the most influential eyes in the children's publishing industry. A powerful way to get noticed. Get in touch for any more info ✏️🤓
All tied up #illustration
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Events at Waterstones get you closer to the books and authors you admire most. Find information and tickets about Words of Colour Productions presents: Children’s Fiction and Cultural Inclusion today.
Children’s Fiction and Cultural Inclusion with Patrice Lawrence, Alex Wheatle and Davinia Andrew-Lynch
Join us for an evening of topical debate with children’s authors Alex Wheatle, winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2016 for Crongton Knights, Patrice Lawrence, winner of Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Older Children 2017 for Orangeboy and Davinia Andrew-Lynch, founder of Andlyn literary agency and co-founder of the FAB Prize 2017.
This event will take place at Waterstones Piccadilly, London on Friday 5 May 2017 at 7:00pm.
Click here for more information and tickets
Really looking forward to this!
Toying with themes for a project on gender stereotyping
Happy easter everyone… except grumpy bunny…
CLASSIC COVER: Chopper by Jim Baikie for 2000 AD Prog 570 (16th April, 1988)
Run
Desk buddy
Quick preview of the current proj... father and son, Paleo stylee. Ug!
digital oil experiments, so starting with myself
From final words to final art
For me, there are some magical moments in the process of illustrating a story for a publisher. In chronological order they are:
1) Being told I have a commission, and 2) Being told I’ve finished the commission.
All the stuff in the middle feels almost entirely like one long fully-clothed-in-the-shower-crying moment, as my inner critic calmly tells me things about my work that are, frankly, often deeply offensive. Unrepeatably.
I say almost entirely, because there are milestones that puncture the fear and loathing by reminding you that each image has a start and finish.
Those milestones are the thumbnails, the roughs and finally the final art. For this BLT post I thought I’d show you what they look like for me.
I’m currently working on three different stories for three middle-grade chapter books for an educational publisher. They’re not going to be published until September so I’m going to have to be a little more vague than I’d like. I shouldn’t really be talking about the work so early *but* I’m unusually really happy with a couple of the images in one of the books; it’s a sneak peek in to some really current work; and, well, I’ve already shared a detailed process pic of this on Instagram so I’m already damned!
1 - The illustrator brief
Where it all starts - the brief and layout. I should flesh this out by saying that the final artwork needs to be black and white with one spot colour. We’d already decided on a yellow.
2 - Thumbnails
Next steps - a super sketchy thumbnail of the page layout. I’ll usually abandon the sketch with a ‘or something like that’ kind of resignation. I got pretty lucky with this one, as I was kind of clear about it from the beginning.
“Black Wind, White Snow” is the name of a book I saw on Amazon by accident but the phrase resonated when I was thinking about the image. It led me to use Pierre Noire for the artwork so the blackness could be given the respect it deserved. I think the book is about Russian nationalism. Um, yeah.
3 - The dog phase: the rough rough
Next it’s making sure I know where the image will be in relation to the text. There are usually exclusion zones around the text so I want to know I’m composing the spread properly. That rough thumbnail suffices.
4 - Redrafting for the real rough
Redrawn for the rough submission. Drawn again well enough to show I know what the expression is like, some of the clothing details, how I’d like the texture to be. In other words, enough to show both the publisher that I know where the image is going. Funnily enough, it’s only by taking the rough as far as it can go that I end up knowing where it’s going myself!
5 - The rough submission
The final rough. Pulled and tweaked to fill the spread, with a better depiction of how I’d like to see the light play out. It’s not a silhouette, for sure, but at this point I’m hoping that the publishers prefer what I’d prefer. Selfish me.
Learning that I had to stretch the artwork to fill the space is a learning taken to the final stage.
Once this is submitted it’s a case of waiting for the comments. There’s nothing stopping the publisher from kicking my butt and throwing this out. But I always expect them to tell me what they want more or less of. They’re the client.
6 - Comments
… and there they are. These are the real comments by the way - I’m desperately hoping that if the publisher sees this they’ll forgive my desire to give you the full tour. As you can read, they’d just like to see the image reach the top of the right-hand side of the spread. I’ll take that as a win!
It’s a green light to make the final art, in the confidence that my direction is good.
7 - The final artwork
The final art. Redrawn again with 2B pierre noire on the same paper (a glorious ream of A3 sized offcuts from a good friend of mine, a letterpress printer). It’s scanned and dropped in to Photoshop to adjust the blacks and highlights, and to add the detail - the white snow, and that spot yellow. Yes, that is the masking tape on each end. It won’t be in the final artwork ;) A quick cropping to meet the layout needs and it’s off to WeTransfer with a nice bunch of Tiffs in the post.
So now I’m again waiting for feedback and comments from the publisher. I hope, of course that there are no changes to be made, but if there are, well, it’s ok; the inner critic has long since moved on to something else. Like my dress-sense or something.
Latest blogpost for Big Little Tales :)
Sketchbook cover doodle. I like pencil on black
Me and Muks at Tate Mod yesty. Lovely pic by @cosmichip
South bank with Shu & Maf!
Rough... woodland glade homestead
