Coloring page, something different!

I got the Photoshop up and running WITH pen sensitivity. I'm excited, though this doesn't look like much now. It's going to take some time to master it, but when I do, watch out, I hope my work will be something to see! Anyhow, I did this in honor of my horse loving friends, and I hope they'll take a look, print it off, like it, whatever rocks their horse! The point to these is to not spend more than two hours on them, so I will be doing a lot more as I feel a bit rusty!

Feel free to comment, and let me know if you DO print it off, how it works out, (and feel free to share the finished product with me here on on facebook!)

Coloring Page Redux

There were a few things I didn't care for in the silhouette of the character, so I changed it. Do you see what it is? It's a minor thing if you don't, so don't worry. I'll tell you at the end of the post if you don't want to scroll down or can't tell. The same thing happened last week. Though I didn't color that one, I did redraw it.

First the amended drawing:

This was a character study, so I didn't do anything with the background. But in coloring it, I thought it needed more. I'd also forgot the earring I wanted to put in . I learned a lot doing this, (it took about six hours to color, which is all I wanted to spend). It's getting easier to think of ambient light and form. Sometimes the blending is a bit better. I'm using an old computer, an old Photoshop and a friend's old Wacom (I love it). I don't know if it was something I did or if it's the computer, but some of the drivers aren't working properly and the computer won't let me uninstall so I can reinstall, so I'm making it work. (yes there are times I get really frustrated over that, but I also figure if I can work under adverse circumstance, if they get better, it'll be a breeze. Besides Rodin was poor, blind and taught himself to draw, often using the the charcoal from his mother's files. If he can, than so can I with the amenities I've got). Anyhow, it's not the best, it's not the worst. And it was fun and I LEARNED a lot...

There are somethings more successful than others, and I got a bit tired. I'm glad I get to do this for myself now. If I were doing it for someone else, this wouldn't be done by a long shot. still I like the sheen of the shoe, some of the reflective lights and shadows. The quality of the colors. It's not a bad overall effort.

I reworked the other drawing as well. Again can you tell the difference (not fair I know, it's way down below, but perhaps you've printed it off and can see the differences? I'll let you know about the changes underneath.

Give up? His arm and her foot were too small in the original. I cleaned up a few of the forms, and some of the stuff with "Bruiser". On the original Pirate drawing, the shirt came out obscuring the teddy bear silhouette. I thought it much more interesting to see the teddy's outline and I made him a small bit larger.

In the coming weeks I'll be trying to incorporate my love of animals and environment again. I have some friends on Facebook who love certain kinds of creatures, I figured I'll try to incorporate those drawings on my page. Yeah, it's a blatant thing to try to entice them here. But also it's great practice and I love doing them. The more you do the easier and more thoughtful it gets. I really believe it's important for us to learn to live together. The old and they young, the human and the rest of the world, as well as all the different kinds of people. Feel free to give suggestions if you'd like to see a subject drawn out (get it, get it?! It's an artist joke!). I may or may not be able to get to it right away, but I appreciate the feedback, your taking the time to read my blog. Next weeks coloring page is for my daughter who is into sloths, from a friend of mine who lives in Costa Rica. 

Judging a book by it's cover--- my process

I can't speak to how others commit art, and goodness knows I commit it in different fashions on a regular basis, but there are a few givens in the process. I thought I'd set this down, for those who have the tendency of liking to see how others do it (I'm one of those myself, I find it inspiring). Or to inform those who have no idea, especially those who may be foraying into the self-publishing realm, for what to look for, what to expect and what's realistic. It's difficult to know whether a price you pay for the artwork is fair or not without knowing the process 

Some of my covers I've done already:

I think you can tell these are my work, right?

What even constitutes a good cover? Harder than you think. A good cover not only embodies the spirit of a book. It needs to be eye grabbing, clear, reduce down to a small size and be legible and exploded up and still hold the design. Simply eloquent visually with a minimum of clutter. A friend with a BRILLIANT cover, Cynthia Lord's RULES is a great example of an exceptional cover. Intriguing, colorful, humorous, it conforms to all of these things.

I hand render my work. Keep in mind it will look like my art. So if you want a certain kind of cover, you need to find out who does it, or EMULATE (do not plagiarize, or you could get into a world of hurt on that!) Think about the character of the book and the character of the cover, not only the imagery, whimsical does not a horror story make, for instance.

Ingredients for your cover: You need to have the title, byline. Personally, unless your book is an award winner, any blurbs, etc. I believe should be on the back, for the most part.  The less busy ness the better!

I just finished a cover for my friend Margot Finke, and she's given permission for me to share the process. I will not only explain the reasoning, but will also be upfront about the expense end of it, because I'm not the only one doing this for extra credit, and if you're an author buying someone's services it may help you to decide if the money is worth it or not. Again, realize this is MY process, so if you're doing this, you need to talk with the illustrator you hire, so you don't have many glitches.

The first thing I do is talk with the author. Some authors are so specific, they can tell me exactly what they want. There are times I won't take that particular job. Just as authors need to own what they do, barring critique and editorial input, illustrators are alike in that regard. If it feels as if there's no room for me, there are other artists as well as Photoshop and Clip Art out there for the author to make a cover exactly the way they envision. Personally I want them to want ME with my style.

Also if they balk at my price (covers range from $100-300, depending on the detail and time involved, more often than not it comes in at under $150. Sounds like a lot but when you realize I'm not working on my stuff, and it works out to less than minimum wage most of the time, and other than my promoting the cover as my work- which also helps the author-- they own the artwork in my eyes. The only thing I ask is if they need to make changes to it, they give me the opportunity to do it, because my name is on the work as well.

If I take the job, it's one third - one half down, depending on the resources available and what the author is comfortable. Next I  read the book. I'm a slow reader, have difficulties with my eyes, so it can take upwards to a couple of days if it's a longer work.

 Then I will sketch it out, keeping in mind the original conversations. This is the first sketches I showed Margot for her upcoming book, Down Under Calling:

This wasn't what Margot had in mind so we spoke a bit more and I reworked it to this:

and a colored version fleshed out a bit more to give an idea of the palette:

 This is usually where I get the author's approval to go on. In this case, talking further, we lost the clothes line, and I put a pair of kookaburras in, then edited further:

Now we start playing with the titles, Margot liked my calligraphy from Nana's Gift. I haven't got my pens with me so I play in Photoshop. In the end I used a combination of Photoshop rendered and hand rendered-I can make a broad edge with a couple of pencils, papertowel and rubberbands for a small amount of text-- and Photoshop edited Title and byline. Here's the playings with:

Decided to lose the Kookaburra, then the Frilly, the color of the shoes, a few little details.... 

And VOILA! We have Achieved Cover!

 There is still the adjustment of the title so it's not hitting the top of the page to make, but over all I like this, composition and the color.  If someone has paid me one third, they will pay the second third when I give them the color study. Final payment is due with the finished art. I send them the 350 dpi and a web version of 72 dpi. I tell them I can resize specifically (it's better to do it in Photoshop, the resolution is far superior) if they give me the dimensions they need. 

P.S.

Another trick to see if things clearly, if your composition and forms are working,  but you have to do it to a COPY, is to DESATURATE the work. Rendered in grey you can see if the work holds and reads well. Here's the study I did for that:

Hope this helps!

When does learning become procrastination? I know I'm borderline at the moment, so within the next couple of days I will be getting right back on the horse. The first problem was banging my head against new technology. Usually I don't mind a good whack or two upside, because it often loosens things I hadn't thought of, and after a good sinus cleaning, I "get it". The second there are enough other things that I felt wonky about, on a professional level and it interfered with my processing the info. The insecurity fed the infernal editor.

With holidays and other events (that are not quite over), the decision for me was to zag. Instead of immersing myself in the new technology, I reviewed things from art school, thirty years ago, and a lot of it was overlooked. Ah such was the education of a prodigy and a renegade. Often times the core was skimmed or left out entirely. There's a lot you can do with raw talent, but it really only goes so far.

I finished the snake painting, did a caricature entirely from scrap on the Wacom and though it wasn't a best effort, it was decent for a first time and more importantly I did something new and something I didn't hate. Heck I wanted that feather boa. I presently have a couple of past drawings I want to rework in Photoshop, before I reengage Oscars project. The reason again is two fold. I need to feel comfortable and conscious of what I got from the two tutorials (Designing a Drawing and Working with color, Folio Academy). Yes I knew most of it, but I hadn't actually been DOING it, and a lot of it's easier said than done. I can see a couple of things happening within the exercises, as well as getting more adept. I tend to work busy, so more than likely it'll not only make me more considered, but simplify. I think one of things I also really like about Will's tutorials, we come from similar aesthetics. I think it's about the story and communicating first.
THEN it's about the art, which isn't to say art is secondary, it's just that if it doesn't fulfill it's purpose, doesn't matter how pretty or colorful it is.

I hadn't realized as well, as autocratic, dictatorial as I am (come on! I have to write, draw and sometimes even calligraph, and now I'm publishing?! Course my caveat and Achilles is I want to do it all well enough so no one will ever pooh-pooh it with well she did DO it by herself, sniff, sniff!) I'd not really given myself permission to design my drawings. It was a strange thing to come to me, because I get images that pop in my head all the time. What happened was Will completed some of the thoughts and questions I had and it just zinged, connected.

The other reason to take the time to be comfortable with the process, Margot's book is a bit "more". Adding action as well as the considerations, of image, color, value, line, space, form, etc. to a story, and the challenge of different sized devices ranging from 7-8 inches down to about 3.5 inches, having those concerns not be a misunderstood distraction, I'm most definitely glad for the review.

In doing,I gain bits of confidence I misplaced along the way of my life as well. I have a short story in adult land that needs to be published this week and will be visiting a friend for a few days. The holidays are pretty much over, and I'm knee deep into trying to figure out how to make the animated GIF. I know once I master that I'm finest kind for a while. Then the only other hurdle will be the actually publishing of the project. Who knows what skill I'll renew or learn then?

Anyhow, this is the very rough reworking of Beauty Shop, the beginning. Will post this redone here, and if I do the two drawings from my Whateverafter, will post those as well.

The bottom will be the reworked one. The upper one , I liked the concept, but couldn't render very well, and was playing with materials-- the plastic-y paper that others make look delicious, I made caca-de-poopoo on. It will be interesting to see the differences, when done, I think.

So I will share my "other" art for the next few months as most of the character assets will be under wraps at least until we publish the app. But I have other quick art to share along the way and I can still talk about the process and provide the resources and journey textually, right?

So the next couple of days I'm looking at PERSPECTIVE. I need to nail it down for my Duke Day For Annie as well as for the other projects (Whateverafter, Becoming and Lytee).  As a matter of fact as soon as I finish the post I'll be sitting through this one: Four point perspective, and later on review some videos on animating in FLASH.

When I say nail it down, that means at one point I'm going to have to get obnoxious about drawing everything I see. I've found if you do it so much you don't have to "think" about, have a REAL grasp, it has an immediacy and power and you become fearless. I had actually learned this in artschool. I had avoided hands and feet as a kid, because they were too "hard". Granted my then-drawing teacher Ed Douglas had the modernist mantra droning in my ear, but it was still a joke enough that when I would draw it I would also label it: "This is not a CHAIR!".

Even then with the text and image.

But we were to draw hands and feet for a week, and a strange thing happened. After a few days of frustration, I not only started concentrating on the relationships, but fell in love with creating their image. I did compulsively, obsessively, can't-sit-my-butt-down-without-drawing-hands-and-feet for a month. Now I understand their forms so well, I can "draw" a hand from memory, because I understand how their forms work and relate. Which doesn't take away from the best way to draw, LOOKING at what you're drawing. It all just adds to the image, I think.

I did the same thing with the letters "r" and "s", when studying calligraphy. They were my problem letters. So I did them ad nauseum with the same process. By gummy my "r"  have rhythm and my "s"es are downright springy!

In other words, embrace what you avoid, often times you do it because you KNOW you lack. So give yourself that spontaneity and power.

Last night watching a bit of the tube, I could only allow it if I were drawing. To my surprise, I'd drawn Oscar enough he fell off the tip of my Sharpie. Which is fabulous because it will be easy to create a number of images of him and more naturally animate him.  Probably to get a little freer with him as well. Now to give myself the rest of the characters this week. Today I think will be kingfisher, koala and if I have the time, Duckbilled Platypus, because I keep "seeing" him.

Till then, this is my current "Agy" project for my Cafe Press Store, Imagyne. I have another one that is more calligraphy and writer, oriented, Agy Shtuff. My sister had suggested doing a series of "eyes". I had thought about play on words (this means Snake Eyes, in case it's not clear, lol).

Back to it! I'm excited and glad to be back working. I share an update, and hope to be working on process and such as well as sharing it all in the upcoming weeks. First, I had a few epiphanies over the interim weeks. I need to simplify, clarify and color-ify (is that a word? It is now!) my work.
     Ebooks are differenter than publication. One of the reasons I wanted to do this project, I knew it would help my own personal projects. I love animals, but being able to paint someone else's pictures (like teaching) means I can rethink some of my projects because the process is self-clarifying. I will share the finished second illustration and a few changes, because it will no longer BE the second illustration.  I'm currently reading Will Terry's WONDERFUL, must read-blog (to me at least! http://willterry.blogspot.com/) and already stumbled over an affirmation (remarkable how comforting it is to have that kind of reinforcement, kind of like I'm on the "right track").
      In his post on "I live to Create" he shows his process of one of his drawings. Somewhere down the line he notes how his character wouldn't fit through the door. "This is where I realized that my little mouse would never fit through the door. Sometimes when I get working along I lose objectivity and this is a good example. I had to come to terms with the fact that if I wanted it to look right I would have to spend an extra hour or so fixing my mistake. So, I had to cut out little mouse and move her forward in front of her vegetable basket. In the past I would have settled. In the future I'm sure I'll be able to spot the places where I settled in this image."  Not to mention, the fact I learned a few neat tricks (I actually "mastered" Photoshop, because I've taken his online course through his Folio Academy).
      Anyhow, this has been true for me. In this example, you can see the original drawing of the characters in Oscar's dream sequence...

     What I realized after I'd colored most of them, the proportions didn't work. I enlarged and cut and pasted and learned quite a bit in the process. I now feel enough confidence changing in the middle (or even the end) isn't so scary and far superior to not being happy with the result. 
     What I ended up with...

      I like it far better as far as proportions go (HA! the ADD, dyslexia which CAN be amusing and informative kicked in, and I'm going to talk about how it is to work with THOSE kinds of differenter, and I'd written "propoortions" before I corrected. Talk about FREUDIAN, lol!). But now I don't care for the colors or composition. It's interesting, but it's too busy and I don't think it will translate to a small screen, which is a goal. 

     I'll be reading the rest of Will's blog before I restart, but restart I must. Don't get me wrong. I will probably use this as a start, and I will more than likely keep some of this flavoring (not to mention I have to be considerate of the REAL colorations and animals. Who knows, I may cut and paste, remove, redraw and play with this particular drawing. But I'm sure what I end up with, won't look like this, and I will like it better. It will be more of what Oscar ordered, because I can tell, he'd really love to have his story told to the very best of my ability. So another cup of peach tea and then back to the mulberry tree, with me!