Friday, September 28, 2012

IF: Book


I am a great lover of books, so I did not have to look hard to dig up an image for this week's Illustration Friday challenge.  Books appear in so many of my pictures.  So do rats.  And kids.  The raven's a bit more unusual.  This is a piece I drew a couple of years ago, just for the sake of building my portfolio.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Novel Illustrations

I think I may be finished with the latest round of revisions to my middle grade novel manuscript.  Before I start querying, I want to have a few sample illustrations--two or three black and white interior illustrations and a color cover piece--to accompany the package.  That's what I'm working on now.  The following sketch is from the opening scene:


My original thinking was to work up a final version in pen-and-ink with a tonal wash. To that end, I inked what was essentially the same base drawing (without shading) that you see above.  The result was such a disappointment that I'm not going to post it.  Part of the problem is that I drew it too small to get a real handle on the facial expressions.  Also, the characters, who are supposed to about twelve years old, looked too young.  Today I've been redrawing the same picture at a larger scale while aging up features slightly.


You will notice that I haven't done any inking or shading at this point.  As I was drawing this I started thinking of other possible ways of completing the image.  I have Adobe Creative Suite 5.5.  I have the day off from my day job tomorrow.  Maybe I'll see if I can work this into a strong image in the forgiving layers of Photoshop.

Hello!

 Just checking in to say I am still alive but less active here, obviously.  You can find my more recent art posts on social media, especiall...