Last week at Bobbledy Books it was all about painting. Painting, painting, painting. I had completed sketches on the computer and placed them in the general layout:
Then I had inked in each part of each image using pen and ink. For example, on the left side is the dragon:
And on the right are the little vignettes of the dragon doing bad things:
I sometimes mess up inking, so will just redraw the extra bit I messed up on, and then patch everything together in Photoshop. For example, when I drew the princess that the dragon is kidnapping, I accidentally drew her crown too far down on her forehead, so you couldn’t tell what line was the bottom of the crown and what lines were her eyes. And her strands of hair were confusing. And her arm was too short.
So I just redrew the princess, giving her a longer arm and black braids:
Once I painted everything in, I patched it all together in Photoshop:
Isn’t Photoshop amazing? I bet you can’t even tell that I made the fix. At least, I hope you can’t.
I cannot tell you how often I thank my lucky stars that I was born in the age of Photoshop, so I don’t have to redraw and repaint things all the way from the beginning, like people used to have to do. Actually, illustrators used to solve the problem by gluing in a little paper patch over the mistake and just repainting that patch – the analog version of this. But there was lots of sanding of edges and painting of white in very sneaky ways to hide those patches. If you ever have a chance to see some original art by illustrators from any time before 1990, it’s really fun to see the clever ways in which they hide their corrections.
At any rate, all of this is to say I spent lots of time painting this week, and papers were scattered everywhere, waiting to dry and then to be scanned.
Alden kept me company painting:
I’m afraid she fully expects her leaf to be a part of this book.
While I waited for Matthew to scan all of my paintings into the computer, I entertained Oscar, who rarely comes into the studio, but had decided the sun shining on Iggy’s bed was worth a visit.
I also needed to create some more watercolor texture blocks – all of the cutout watercolor shapes in the pictures are actually just cut out in Photoshop. I know, I know – it sounds like cheating, but actually cutting out pieces of paper in the right shapes would take me FOREVER, and you would only get one Bobbledy Book every three years, and that wouldn’t be good. So, some textures are just one color:
And others are multiple colors:
Another secret: it doesn’t actually matter what color they are, because I can adjust the colors in Photoshop. It’s mostly looking for enough variation in the application of paint that it doesn’t look like I cut all of the patches out of the same piece of paper.
So, once I put everything together, it will look something like this:
I still need to do some adjusting on the paper cutouts, and maybe add some line drawing on top of them (I usually do that in white, on the computer). But that’s the general gist. And I have to do that for about 40 images. So it takes a long time. But, I have officially completed the painting in and the placing of the painted pieces – this week I’ll dedicate to placing and adjusting the paper cutouts.
All this is to say – I’m getting closer. The funny thing about any project is that the more you work on it, the closer you get to the end, no matter what. I always find that comforting. Except, of course, at the very beginning of a project, when I’m the farthest from the end that I ever will be. Which is why I try to never think about anything when I’m starting something. But as soon as I’m one minute in, I say to myself, “That’s one minute closer to the end! I did it!” and give myself a big pat on the back. Really, the only way to get through anything is to constantly congratulate yourself. I find it a very useful practice.
So, hooray for me! One week closer to finishing The Imaginary Dragon! I think I’ll treat myself to some ice cream.