#smileyshri

[archandshri]

23rd Feb '24 - [arch] OH RISO my beloved!!!!!! ft. cyberpunk hermitcraft soup group

A cliffhanger!!!! And now I have to wait a month for you to upload the second half?? How will I cope :’’0

For real, it’s so awesome to see your process and the sheer amount of inspiration you take! In particular, I thought ‘Sit on Two Chairs’ and ‘This Was Our Pact’ were particularly yummy. 

I think book covers are really hard. You have to sum up a book’s energy in one image, make it stand out and show just enough so people want more. Exploring the narrative through those full pages is really interesting - though this is something you did for fun, it could be a really useful technique for getting to know a narrative. When I’m designing my comic covers, I always do it last - that way I’ve had practice with the visual style and I’m thoroughly familiar with the themes, so I guess spending a bit of time with the characters and narrative in this way helps for standalone book covers too. Of course, it helps if you have the time for that XD

Okay!! Onto what I've been up to!!! [warning this is a beefy post I'm sorry for your poor reading brain]

The past two weeks have been really enjoyable! I’ve been playing a lot with slow world-building, in sketchbooks, google documents, and voice notes to friends. Letting myself really sit with concepts, think about the characters, let them play in my head with no expectations. With this relaxation and lack of pressure, some beautiful narratives and interactions have been developing. I’m starting to need a name for a world/ the story. I’m not quite ready to give them a full introduction to the internet - I know it doesn’t but it feels like there’s some accountability to *produce something* and this slow development is really important for the quality and my skill building. It’s really hard to take on, but we actually don’t have to make the perfect thing now! In fact, it’s impossible. Pressure on ourselves makes it so hard to make something good if we’re always grasping at the final result.  In the meantime, while those characters develop, I have been working hard on my basic skills. I wrote about characterization last post, but this week I focused on setting and colour. I was inspired (once again) by Hermitcraft. I’ve seen some really incredible illustrations of Minecraft builds in the fandom, and it seems like a great exercise.

Bdouble0's Season 10 Base illustrated by @applestruda [source] and The Red Zone, built and illustrated by Bdouble0 [source]

One of the creators on Hermitcraft, ImpulseSV, created this build in a recent episode. It takes inspiration from the last season of Hermitcraft, where he was part of the ‘soup group’ with two other players, and his current base concept - a cyberpunk city.  I also LOVE his new character design, so I wanted to place him in the scene.

Screenshot from Impulse's video and new impulse design by @maxx-doodles

Here are some initial thumbnails I did, trying to figure out the composition. I wasn’t sure of the vibe yet, so I tried some rough thumbnailing, and drawing on an isometric grid and other perspective techniques. I’m going a bit mad for characters at the mo, so I wanted to place some in the scene. I found the angle of the isometric grid steep to place characters comfortably, so decided against that.

Looking back at it, I love the second! But I believe I was struggling with the perspective. I decided on the last one eventually.

Now, I absolutely adore all of the players in the Soup Group, and I am BIG fan of redesigning their notable characteristics to suit different settings. So yes, I decided to put all of the soup group in the image.

PearlescentMoon (left) from my comic and GeminiTay's Hermitcraft Season 10 design [from this thumbnail] (right)

Here's the sketch of the final image. I really enjoyed coming up with cyberpunk versions of them all. I used the impulse design almost exactly, with a few extra interesting details since he's mostly viewed from the back. For PearlescentMoon (middle) I kept her fringe, dark hair and gave her a glowing moon symbol on her top. For GeminiTay, I kept her long ginger hair, antlers (but glowing!) and took inspiration from her new season 10 design - a dark blue jumpsuit to match her dark blue clothes in her new design, and the braids she is often drawn with. I also gave them edgy new hairstyles. And a robot arm. I don't have lore for that.

As usual, I filled each flat colour-to-be with black and lowered the opacity to play with the values. Then I added colours one at a time, aware might be riso printing it. Originally I stuck to trying to make it printable (making the colours out of ones I could make my layering 2-3 colours at different opacities), but as I went on, I decided to drop that and focus on the quality of the image in a digital format alone. I did keep the grayscale version above with all the separate layers in case I needed that if/when I came to riso printing it. Below are the main two digital colour schemes I tried out.

I settled on the one on the left, with the blue tones - the foreground characters really pop. I put a few details in Gem's hair, colour variations etc, and cropped it for Instagram. I actually much prefer the cropped version - it sits better in a rule of thirds.

Now the moment we've all been waiting for :'')

RISO!!!!!!!!!!!

I returned to Cardiff after a couple of months away and was delighted to spend my first day back at The Printhaus, an awesome shared print studio where I have basically made my home. A few of my awesome friends happened to be there, so I spent the day playing around with this image with their help! (please check them out they're very cool - Gavin helped me a lot (we hung out at Thought Bubble, remember? and Rhi gave good crits too!!)

For those who don't know, risograph is basically a shitty photocopier that can only print one colour at a time. However, you can play with gradients and opacities, and layer colours really nicely to combine. I've done a lot of single-colour tonal work with riso but this is my first go really layering.

First, Gavin showed me how to separate the channels in Photoshop, using the flat image uploaded to the 'gram. We copied and pasted these layers in grayscale and added blending modes to each layer to replicate what they might look like when printed.

With blending modes, the digital mockup looked like this!!

This bit goes into technical details for replicating what the print might look like for those who might want it - feel free to skip :)))

I copied and pasted the Cyan, Black and Magenta layers as greyscale (as you can see above)

I made all of the greyscale layers multiply layers since risograph ink is transparent and we wanted to see how it layers. The ink usually comes out a bit lighter than you think, so it's good to bear that in mind. I used a clipping mask over each greyscale layer and a blending mode. WHEN YOU PRINT, PRINT IN GREYSCALE, NOT COLOUR.

Here's how I split the colours from CMYK to the riso colours, their hex codes and the blending mode I used to replicate the colours:

Cyan - Mint [HEX#82D8D5] Screen Magenta - Fluorescent Pink [HEX#FF48B0] Screen Black - Blue [HEX#0078BF] Overlay Yellow - scrapped for colour scheme purposes

Blue, Mint and Florencent Pink layers in greyscale in Procreate.

Riso printed Mint and Florescent Pink layers on separate paper, followed by the two layered together.

We always start with the lighter colour inks first, because sometimes the rollers can pick up the ink and cause extra marks where you don't want them. The first two colours came out great!

The first time we printed the blue, it came out very dark (left, first image). I have had this issue before - my last book, Winter Wellbeing, came out much darker than I wanted. Now I realise that the blue ink is super sensitive. All the 'white space' that is covered by a low-opacity blue on the left is only 2%, and yet it has come out pretty strong. We tried printing it on one of the misaligned images just to see, but it took all of the brightness out of the neon soup sign at the top of the image (second image). So I changed the values and pushed them way lighter, so it just pushed the values of the darker bits slightly, and brightened some of the lineart (right, first image)

And this is the final riso printed version!! I'm so so happy with how this came out. It's so different from the original digital version, and I actually love that.

I didn't create new colours in the way that I intended to - I wanted to play with overlaying purposefully to create specific colours eg. orange for the hair etc. But!!! I'm really happy with how it came out. That will have to be a project for next time.

Also, many copies are slightly misaligned, so in future I think I'd do flat layers for the colours a more blobby style with the linework on one layer only so there's less of a chance for obvious misalignment. design for the riso, rather than riso the design.

Overall though, this feels like a super cool step up and a milestone for me. Super happy with how it came out!! And I'm excited to play with colour some more. Can't wait to see the rest of the Lionheart brothers! Enjoy your weekend :)))

Archie 🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺 <3

[archandshri]

The Lionheart Brothers Bookcover (part - 3) from Shri - 29/03/24

Hi Archie!

I'm glad that my bullying (affectionately) worked!

Seeing you getting so stuck in your character's stories makes me want to get back to my comfort characters and their stories - I'm actually trying to make some official character sheets for them, so maybe one day I'll be able to officially show them to people.

Until then here are some of my warm-ups and cool-downs of them instead.

Anyways getting into Part 3!!!

Recap on what I was talking about

The last blog was about how I was completely lost in what to do next as I just couldn't come up with anything with the right vibe.

So I went back to the basics by analysing first what the existing covers were doing and what I liked and disliked about them.

Notes at the time

What I’m struggling with is both depicting their relationship (their adorsion for each other) while also showing the more intense scene later in the book

Both the covers on the left [above] have the brothers physically larger than the dragon, showing how although the dragon is massive, the story is about them and overcoming the dragon.

These are good examples, showing more of the adventurous side.

Though I don’t like how it shows the dragon which is a mystery of the whole book, so kinda a spoiler.

I also had a look at other book covers to find what kind of vibe I wanted the cover to look like

I absolutely loved the composition of this one, with the ice queen overshading the character, again showing the control over the progestins story.

I then came up with these two sketches.

This was the breaking point for me although it's very similar in composition to the first draft I did, its tone is completely different.

Differences

Brothers Poses:

The pose on the first draft was showing fear, running and determination. while the new pose of the brother shows the absolute adoration they have for each other and how the book is driven by their love for each other.

Notice how the older brother is not even looking at the perales ahead he's just looking at his younger brother with so much love, while his younger brother returns the gaze.

(btw I am obviously talking about familial love)

This gives the cover a hint of a vintage look, implying the tone of the story - capturing the innocence of vintage stories I was struggling to capture.

Notes at the time

Positive

Love the position on the ruler

Improvements/edits

The cherries at the top look better in the sketches

Bird feels a bit strange in that space

Rusty legs need tweaking

The space on the ruler's right is strange

Note how during the colour phase I took out the eye complete getting rid of the dragon. this was because I felt visually that the area was getting too busy, distracting from the brothers. so I took it out.

And other notes

The Cherries and the roses are a narrative node towards the village's feathers in the book. Cerry village and wild Rose village.

Look how the brothers are in front of the border/frame, this was to visually show how they go from one world to another in the story. going into another world with the vibe of a painting or a storybook.

The dove flying onto his arm shows how he's an advocate for peace and will fight for it (pose - he's visually standing against the bad guy in the image) and his natural acceptance of the dove shows it's his nature to fight for peace.

The bag guy seamlessly blends into the landscape filled with shadows - again showing his control over the lands. Notice how the two elements in red (and at the highest pion of the page) are the shell/horn and his helmet feathers - these are his symbols of power

His cold colour pellet contracting with the warmth of the brothers

Screenshot from my slides

and here's the final! (finally) (Q_Q)

Anyway there is my process from start to finish on doing my book covers (with a lot of issues along the way)

Let me know if anyone has any questions!

I'll see you all soon and have a lovely day!

[archandshri]

The vision for an illustration breakdown from Shri - 27/04/2024

Hey Archie and everyone!

It's lovely to hear you taking control over your health and not letting anyone/society's expectations of a working/hustle culture control your life - leading to burnout. It really does feel like directly fighting against the capitalistic view when we value fun and rest above work and their view of 'success'

I also couldn't agree more with you - fairs are such a magical place, I've definitely got the best compliments and feedback from them, it always reminded me of the importance art has on people sometimes; always leaving me a bit dazed.

As promised my slightly late blog post is here. (It didn't allow me to edit my original post so)

I mentioned I just did a really big hand-in yesterday with Third Bear Press, so I don't want to go to ham on this post.

I did think about talking about my recent hand in but it's still too soon (I've been staring at those pages for two weeks straight and many weeks before that)

But if you want to have a cheeky look at it go check out the Kickstarter with Third Bear Press!

link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thirdbearpress/boxes-2

Anyway actually getting into the blog, I wanted to talk about something I've been pondering recently.

Archie and I were talking a while ago about how they're a bit frustrated with the difference between their vision for an illustration and their skill set - when your skill set doesn't match your creative vision.

And I indeed, I had some thoughts about it.

(also this is not supposed to be an @ at you Archie, I just went on a really long thought tangent).

My first thought was "I used to feel that all the time" Then I was like "Wow I haven't felt that for a long time" Then I thought "Wow that kinda sounds a bit fullhead?!"

But then I was like "Hold up, back up. I don't think it has to do completely with the skillset, it also has to do with the visions/expectations itself?" because I can't remember the last time I had that experience of having that illustration idea the same way I did a few years ago.

They're different, so it got me thinking why?

Breaking down my thoughts

Also, slight disclaimer: I did no research whatsoever for this so it's literally just my thoughts. Anyways, enjoy!

The vision/idea of an illustration

I don't have the same vision for an illustration anymore as I used to. Before I used to start illustrations/projects with a distinct image in mind, and then draw from there.

Nowadays I think of the idea/image and then clarify it with the message/thing I'm trying to convey through the image. Having this clarification on what you are trying to say is so helpful when hitting issues because you can always refuse back to that as a touchstone.

Without it shit hits the fan then it's harder to take that step back and reevaluate the image.

The minds-eye and the vision/idea

So this section of pondering reminded me a lot of the book I read What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund (very good book with a lot of nice pictures). This book discusses what we see when we read (hence the title), one of the main points of the book is what our brain actually images/pictures when reading text.

Here is an extract because it explains it better:

These readers contend that the success of a work of fiction hinges on the putative authenticity of the characters. Some readers go further and suggest that the only way they can enjoy a novel is if the main characters are easily visible: "Can you picture, in your mind, what Anna Karenina looks like?" I ask. "Yes," they say, "as if she were standing here in front of me." "What does her nose look like?" "I hadn't thought it out; but now that I think of it, she would be the kind of person who would have a nose like .. "But wait-how did you picture her before I asked? Noseless?" "Well..." "Does she have a heavy brow? Bangs? Where does she hold her weight? Does she slouch? Does she have laugh lines?" (Only a very tedious writer would tell you this much About a character)

pg 24 of What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund

This strangeness of the brain of feeling/believing we can see a character in your mind's eye in full clarity - but at the same time, not actually seeing any details?

This is what I think also happens when we have an illustration vision/idea for a piece of artwork, being able to 'see it' but at the same time not.

This then can cause a lot of issues in the fulfilment of this vision for an illustration, because how can you ever go to the standard of your idea if you don't even know what it is exactly your idea is?

The skillset

This I wanted to touch on because although there is more to it then a skillset, skillset does have a play in this - but maybe not in the way you expect it. Although yes if your skillset is better it's easier to meet these expectations for an illustration, I also believe it has a lot do to with processes and how to handle issues in illustration pieces.

So before university, my process for illustration was very simple.

idea for illustration

Sketch out illustration

Line the sketch

Colour the illustration

Finished

And if at any point in this process, the illustration won't working or I run into an issue - I kinda just gave up on it?

My process now:

Idea on illustration (along with what I'm trying to convey through it)

Research (sometimes, depending on the project)

Thumbnails

Initial sketch

Fleshed out sketch

Line

Colour

Texture

Finished

And at any point I run into an issue I solve it, for example, if the hand passion is wrong and just resketch it until I find one that's good.

Obviously, these a big elements of being skilled enough to be able to identify how something is wrong and how to fix it - so there is a sense of drawing mileage by being able to identify those things.

Anyways those our my thought on it - let me know if you guys have any thoughts/ideas on it too!

Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts

Hope everyone has a lovely dinner (I had a really nice roasted cauliflower with other picky bits)

All the good vibes

Shri

[archandshri]

Alice in Wonderland Cover Redesign (P2) Shri - 21/06/2024

Hi Archie! So glad to see you prioritising your rest and health! Well done! Glad to have you back! Hopefully, it will feel a little less like I'm monologuing to myself now...

Anyway, it would be so interesting to hear your perspective on the mind’s eye and picturing artwork. I feel you'll have some really good thoughts on it.

Also so glad you are obsessed with WHA, I'm almost up-to-date now, just need to read Vol 10 - 12. It is such a beautiful Manga, especially its panelling work. I have this amazing video I watched about it.

I think it does minimal spoilers? Anyways, it's a great video go check it out!

So getting into the last two weeks on my AIW project (Alice in Wonderland).

In the last two weeks I’ve done about 6-10 hours of development and I’ve selected final sketches

I also set some soft deadlines for this project to make sure it's chugging along

Sketch 17/06/23

Cleaned up sketch 08/07/24

Linework 29/07/24

Colour 19/08/24

Final 09/09/24

So let's hope I keep to these deadlines...

Anyway with this in mind I hit my forts deadline this week which was to choose a sketch with the one below.

I picked this one over the others because it effectively conveyed the themes I wanted to express and highlight in this book.

I picked this one over the other because they didn't serve the story. Even if I personally love the perspective and vibe of the one on the left, it gives it too much of a horror physiological vibe. Which Alice in Wonderland is not.

So here are my further refined sketches below.

I thought it would be really good to have some of the motifs from AIW embedded into the keyhole design - however, because the style of illustration is not my usual approach, it's been pretty hard to get my head around it.

Here are the final sketches of the book cover - there are still a few details to iron out.

To Iron out:

Patton in keyhole

how to draw a mouse

blurb and other design stuff

spine design

small element in water

Things I'm thinking about.

Alice in Wonderland title can blend in with lines of water (thinking about placement of essential elements like title and blurb)

The tone of the piece needs to stay playful and fun while being weird

So that's all from me this week peeps

Hope you all have a lovely dinner and send good vibes

Shri

[archandshri]

Creative Intentions for 2024 from Shri - 02/Feb/2024

Hi Archie! Yesss returning to the humble sketchbook is always such a joy! Especially when working through an artistic or personal problem.

I totally agree with the anatomy thing you mentioned, it’s so boring (and unrealistic) to learn something in one sitting, so implementing it slowly when you can, is great! 

I actually don’t work on anatomy unless I find I’m struggling with a specific bit in my final work e.g. I'm drawing someone and their hips don't look right, I’ll go and do some quick studies on it to solve that problem. I'm not sure if this is the right way to do it but it's how I do it and it works for me.

Definitely a bit existential for the first post but it's always good to keep a critical mind about your practice, always checking in with it. Because if you know why you do things, you can do it with more intention than before. In both your creative practice as a whole and your whole person-nes. Knowing why you do things is so important.

Quick update on my endeavours

I’ve got a few projects on the go at the moment, 

A short 8-page comic for a publishers

T-shirt for a friend’s t-shirt design

Plymouth Comic and Zine Fair which is around the corner (which I still need to prep for *sweats profusely*)

Continuing on my comic Again.

I’ve just finished a project for my sibling's friends making ten emoticon reactions for their YouTube channel (it’s a League of Legends channel). I’ve put a few below of my favourites. :)

What I did well in this project was - The nose, God I love drawing noses so much! The hands a looking pretty good too.

What I can do better for next time - Do a few more studies on the person I’m drawing and really look at how I can translate their unique features into my simplified style; diversifying my characters and drawing.

Anyway to the actual post, I thought my first actual post could be about the intention I want to set for my artistic practice this coming year. With a small overview of last year in terms of my creative practice

Overview last year

Last year was basically my first year out of uni (out of education completely *gasp*) which was a huge adjustment and it took me a long time to pick myself up from the post-uni sad boi hours.

Once I got back on my creative feet I jumped straight into my projects intending to fill the gap in my portfolio and update it, as well as making dummy books/pitches.

I managed to complete one dummy book, made one self-published picture book and go to Thought Bubble!!! With a few single illustrations, testing single image storytelling.

I had a gap between July and November, where I was working on two big projects, which is great but it would be a lot better to stagger work a bit more effectively, making sure I have only one big project while working on smaller ones to keep work flowing smoother.

This year I’d like to:

Complete the first volume of Again comic

Death is relative pitch set-up and ready for pitching

Complete my cover project (finish the last two covers)

Be a bit more confident in graphic design

Start the habit of sketching in life more

Learn a bit more about how to use a Carma

Doing small ‘final’ illustrations for socials and experimentation.

Be a bit more confident in graphic design

I want to be a bit more confident in graphic design within my illustration. This has been on my to-do list for years! So this year I’ll actually give it a go this year!

Start the habit of sketching in life more

I would like to do more life drawing in my day-to-day life. This is to record the smaller moments in my day-to-day life both for inspiration/ideas and practice/learning. So I'll start keeping a sketchbook in my pocket more often so when I commute to and from my day job or go about my day I can visually record more of these small moments.

Learn a bit more about how to use a Camera

I want to set myself this year is be a bit more confident around a camera. This had less to do with illustration but more my overall practice. But for so many years I've been hopeless with cameras all my life. So I finally want to be able to practically use a camera for both product photos and adding to my overall creative practice

Doing small ‘final’ illustrations for socials and experimentation.

This last one is something I’ve only briefly thought about, and it's come mostly from the fact that working in publishing you work on such long turnarounds, so to keep things fresh and creative I thought it might be fun to do some really small 'final' illustration more often. in the past, it's these sorts of things that are the original inspiration for my books and other projects. :)

And finally, I mention this in my recent endeavours but I’d love to continue improving in capturing subtle fetchers in my characters, as for a long time I had a terrible case of same-face syndrome. I’m a bit better nowadays but I still want to develop things like face shapes, eye shapes and placements because using only different skin tones in characters is not really diversifying anything.

Lats notes is the one thing I have in the last year fallen head-over-hills for is NOSES! God, I love drawing all the different kinds of noses, At the moment my favs are the Roman Nose, the straight-down nose and the Hooked Nose.

Anyway, that's it for me for this week, hope you all have a lovely week and a good dinner!

[archandshri]

The Lionheart Brothers Bookcover (part - 2) from Shri - 01/03/24

Hi Archie

That sounds like exciting stuff! Absolutely loved seeing the Riso come together colour by colour!

Also, I'm super happy that you're letting your (comfort?) characters marine in your head for a while! There is nothing more fun and relaxing than just imagining your comfort characters interact/go through their story with no pressure of making it a 'good' story.

I constantly have my comfort characters go through self-indulgent story structures e.g. sickfic vibes or hurt/comfort storylines (have I imagined many of those sorts of scenes before? yes. Will I image it again? yes.

Anyway, getting into part 2 now.

When sketching these first few ideas, I was completely free and open, not limiting myself to any boundaries yet.

The only thing I was roughly keeping in mind was the visual cues and elements of the book. These included elements such as the Dove, Cutler (the bag guy), the brothers and the house. I was also really loosely thinking about composition, and how the dynamics of the story/character will affect the composition.

You can see me thinking about the relationship of the characters further here, playing around with this big dark shadowy figure taking up most of the page, Showing how this ominous creature is in control/power.

Elements I considered 

Brothers' closeness (showing that in their physical closeness to each other on the page and their body language)

peaceful with overshadowing danger (either with a shadow figure or maybe the dove being shot?)

Rusky (younger brother) follows/wants to be more like his older brother Jonathan

This is why in a lot of the images I drew I purposely put Rusky below Jonathan/or following him somewhere, this is to show how Rusky isn't where his brother is but is striving to get there. This was quite difficult to get as making them close yet having this relationship dynamic was had to capture.

This is where I had to now put on my critical hat and really ask what sketch serves the book better. Although I absolutely adore the cover with them on the horses and the one what them climbing the mountain together. They didn't quite convey the message/story the book had, so I went with the last one.

My notes I took at the time.

First Image (Brothers on horses)

I love this cover but it really doesn't tell us anything about the bother, except that they have a good relationship. 

Second image (climbing up a mountain)

I think the dynamic feel to the cover, again shows the brother's bravery

There are more journey vibes in this sketch (which might be better to fit with the beginning of the book?)

Third Image (facing of the bad guy with a creature in the back)

I think this is the best image in showing the conflict between the brothers and Tengil while also showing their bravery.

To push the brother's notice aspect in the story I'll need to tweak

I'm pushing the sketch further by simplifying it so I can figure out the overall shapes and silhouettes.

Notes at the time:

Poses of the brothers

Rusky runs behind to catch up with his brother

Rusky still holding hands but behind his brother looking back into the camera

This was to show how Rusky is still trying to catch up to his older brother both physically and metaphorically.

Though having them holding hands shows this closeness between them, so shows this dynamic relationship where Rusky (the younger brother) is trying to be as great as his older brother but also having a wholesome relationship.

I roughly put in the values.

At this point, this is where the trouble strikes.

The image above is just not sitting right. theoretically it makes sense but the whole image just feels weird

so I continued to play around with the existing image (see above), playing around with adding elements and text.

It just continued to not sit right. Although I did consider just colouring it in any way, I went back to the drawing board and relook at this cover.

Thought at the time:

Issues

Redline work looks like a psychological horror

The vibe of cover feels a bit too menacing/sentence for the sweet and quant feel of the book

Too much happening???

Here I'm just going ham and playing with more graphic/competition shapes to see if I feel like I can get anything else

Notes at the time

Likes 

Really like what the border brings, it brings room/space, something to play with (shapes) and it gives the tone of the book a more fairytale/old feel which was something really lacking before.

Dislikes

posing of brothers not really encapsulating abortions

Then I had a whole Slide just ranting about this project and why I can't seem to get the image to fit right.

I am very frustrated because the image is just not working. This is because I believe iced over complicated it and it doesn't have enough space to breathe with is something I appreciate in imagery

At this point, I am truly lost. So when you are in any sense lost in a project, you always go back to one point.

What are you trying to say?

I was to show Rusky's bravery and wanting to be like his brother. I want to show his bravery in helping liberate Wild Rose Village (they live in Cherry Village) and liberate Wild Rose Village.

Character at the bottom (to show weakness and powerless) but Vertical lines to show their energetic and rebellious motions. (Molly Bang)

The dictator guy needs to be at the top of the page because he has total control of Wild Rose Village (not Cherry Valley yet), However, he only has this power because of the horn that controls Cutla, otherwise, he's not that bad.

What do I want to convey:

Vie Text: Lionheart Brothers, Brave and Courageous bothers

Via Image:

I want to convey their wholesome relationship

Shorshadow Cutla 

Duve 

That rusky is becoming braver like his brother

I'll see you in the last part! (it gets better from here :))

Hope you have a lovely week

Shri

[archandshri]

The Lionheart Brothers Bookcover (part - 1) from Shri - 02/02/24

Hi Archie! (and everyone)

Absolutely love hearing about how you broke down your process for that comic! Really loved hearing about the emotional narrative and how you broke down and acted it in your head! (and acted it out in irl) It's something that can be easily overlooked in illustration.

It reminded me of the responsibility of an illustrator because compared to a film crew where you have actors, product designers, costume designers, cinemaphotographers, storyboard artists, editors and much much more. We as the illustrators are in charge of everything, which is a lot.

I act out scenes all the time, always questioning "What is this pose telling me" Then "Is that what I want to convey in that body language"

Anyway, getting my post.

The Lionheart Brothers Bookcover (Part - 1)

This was a project I did a while ago which had a lot of ups and downs however came out with a successful outcome.

This project was motivated from my want I want to get into publishing and the best way into the industry is doing cover design first; so I wanted to add a few book covers and illustration for children's chapter books to my portfolio. 

The books I want to redesign the covers for is The Lionheart Brothers (I recently just read it and was obsessed) Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland.

As I had recently read The Lionheart Brothers, I thought it would be easiest to start with this book. (I also made some fanart of it already so I felt a bit more confident in the language I'll be using)

Also P.S. Spoilers for The Lionheart Brothers! (but it's not very spoil-y most of the spoilers are the last images and last paragraph so go at your own expense)

1st step research:

Starting this project the first thing I did was refer back to the small scene I illustrated from the book when I was fangirling about this book. See below :)

I am super pleased with these illustrations, especially the compositions and colours.

So I used them as the starting point and started researching the book's theme, similar age-ranged book covers and the existing covers and illustrations the book has.

Reaching Book covers that aline with the book's similar themes of quiet peace and the overcoming Evil

Pavlo Oliachenko - Sit on two chairs and (all other books have Named on the cover)

Book Colours in the Age range (and I like the look off)

And finally research into the existing book covers and illustrations from The Lionheart Brothers books.

Actually What was a big motivation for me to redo this book cover is because as a first-time reader of this book, I had no idea what the story was about. I had the book with the brothers on the bridge (first book cover - see above) It's a lovely cover and really shows the more peaceful side of the book and the bit elements of death and passing on. However, shows nothing of the evil they have to overcome.

This was quite annoying as a reader because by chapter 3 both main characters have died? and started living in a peaceful afterlife??? I was so confused as the reader because I was like "ok, but what happens now?????" So I wanted to show more of the overall story on my cover to actually tell audiences what happens in this book.

So I've reached the 30-image limit for a post :( So this will conclude part 1 for The Lionheart Brothers Bookcover Project.

Next post will be about the initial sketches and thumbnails and my thinking behind them. :)

See you next time and hope you all have some lovely dinners

Shri! <3

[archandshri]

Might be a little late... from Shri - 16/03/24

Hey, Archie! (and everyone)

Might be a little late with this post, but I'll try to get it done this weekend! but if not I'll see you all with part three soon👀