Hello all, and happy Easter egg day an’ all that! As you know it’s been Easter break but don’t worry, the work hasn’t stopped!
The last time I posted I’d been getting on with my pencil outlines, which over the past two weeks I’ve managed to complete for the entire book. I’ve also planned out my Ad page (which will also be blown up and used as a poster to go on my wall at the show) and decided how best to colour it, designed the back page and I’ve also nearly completed inking my pencil outlines! This is something I intend to have completed by Tuesday, as that’s when Uni re-opens and this is when I will scan all my pages in at 600DPI (Including my images from ‘The Rise and Fall of Keth the Manosaur) as long as I can get in the bloody photography suite! I will also go back to reprographics on Tuesday to have a chat about printing. My current aim is to have all the pages coloured (which I will be doing digitally in a mixture of block colour and half-tone) and finalised by Monday 16th May, unless of course I’m told that I will need to get them in for printing before that. This leaves me about three weeks to colour them. I think the blog is due to end then too, so I want to leave a week to make sure I have all the necessary things to accompany it and to get it printed. Although the last I heard was that we may NOT have to print them after all, which I think would make a lot more sense.
I also need to get things printed to go in my portfolio, and I would also like some business cards printing before the show. This Friday is the deadline for submitting work for the D&AD show, I hadn’t realised that the deadline for that would be before the deadline for completion of our work. I hope that I have a couple of pages finished by then to submit else I will have to submit old work.
Oh, and here’s the finalised web magazine my cartoons been featured in.
Before I go I’ll show you some pictures and talk in a bit more detail about a couple of the things I’ve mentioned. Firstly, the ‘Ad’ page- As this book is basically a prologue to a detective series I wanted to have an advertisement at the back to show this. I also wanted a poster in my space rather than just stills from the book. As my book is set in the 50’s I’d thought a 50’s style movie poster would look really good.
The last time I posted I’d been getting on with my pencil outlines, which over the past two weeks I’ve managed to complete for the entire book. I’ve also planned out my Ad page (which will also be blown up and used as a poster to go on my wall at the show) and decided how best to colour it, designed the back page and I’ve also nearly completed inking my pencil outlines! This is something I intend to have completed by Tuesday, as that’s when Uni re-opens and this is when I will scan all my pages in at 600DPI (Including my images from ‘The Rise and Fall of Keth the Manosaur) as long as I can get in the bloody photography suite! I will also go back to reprographics on Tuesday to have a chat about printing. My current aim is to have all the pages coloured (which I will be doing digitally in a mixture of block colour and half-tone) and finalised by Monday 16th May, unless of course I’m told that I will need to get them in for printing before that. This leaves me about three weeks to colour them. I think the blog is due to end then too, so I want to leave a week to make sure I have all the necessary things to accompany it and to get it printed. Although the last I heard was that we may NOT have to print them after all, which I think would make a lot more sense.
I also need to get things printed to go in my portfolio, and I would also like some business cards printing before the show. This Friday is the deadline for submitting work for the D&AD show, I hadn’t realised that the deadline for that would be before the deadline for completion of our work. I hope that I have a couple of pages finished by then to submit else I will have to submit old work.
Oh, and here’s the finalised web magazine my cartoons been featured in.
Before I go I’ll show you some pictures and talk in a bit more detail about a couple of the things I’ve mentioned. Firstly, the ‘Ad’ page- As this book is basically a prologue to a detective series I wanted to have an advertisement at the back to show this. I also wanted a poster in my space rather than just stills from the book. As my book is set in the 50’s I’d thought a 50’s style movie poster would look really good.
I printed off a bunch of source images, of all sorts of things that crop up in my book and not just movie posters, I then went back and changed anything I’d not got right from memory. I noticed in 50’s movie posters that they’re very bright and graphic. They usually involve people, especially women, and especially women with few clothes. I then looked at James Bond movie posters, and I basically wanted mine to be a spoof of one of them. I will try to create a sort of amalgamation of those two elements but of course with my own style integrated in to it.
I started drawing from existing posters, and taking elements of them and mixing them up to make new images. I wanted it to feature ‘Turd and his accomplice dead Milo, possibly a villain and also a ‘beautiful’ lady (bond girl). If there was an area of a page I liked I would then outline it and I then redrew the possible images together and made a decision.
I had one in which Firm Turd and Milo were silhouetted in circles like in bond title sequences, one in which ‘Turd is at the front and either side of him were a rival and a woman, another with the same content but different composition and also one which is a view of Firm Turd from between a woman’s legs. This one is based directly on a Bond movie poster for ‘For your eyes only’ and it is the one I chose. Although I gave the woman a ballsack in mine.
I then decided I should think about how I’ll colour it, as with my last book I did the advertisement page in a different method (Photoshop) as the rest of the book (Copic Ciao Markers). I thought it looked good because it separated the image from the others and added some variation. I also got to use my second choice of medium. All the images I saw are really classical looking and don’t have outlines.
I tried colouring pencils but I was disappointed with the outcome, I then did the same thing but with an outline and it looked loads better. I think I will outline it so it still has the cartoon element but I may still do it in a different medium, although the half tone could work well with the content.
As for the back cover, I hadn’t actually planned what would be on it prior to when it came to drawing it, so I took a little time to consider what it could look like. As the cover image is really bold I thought that the back cover should be simpler. It is also quite ambiguous so I don’t want to give too much more away. Rather than a whole long blurb describing the story I’m just using a couple of excerpts from the narration inside to retain a sense of mystery. I’d use something like, ‘The names ‘Turd. Firm Turd.’, ‘I used to be a real high-flyer, although you wouldn’t think it to look at me now.’, ‘I remember it like yesterday… The day everything changed.’ I’ll probably also use some fake reviews like on my last book.
As for the back cover, I hadn’t actually planned what would be on it prior to when it came to drawing it, so I took a little time to consider what it could look like. As the cover image is really bold I thought that the back cover should be simpler. It is also quite ambiguous so I don’t want to give too much more away. Rather than a whole long blurb describing the story I’m just using a couple of excerpts from the narration inside to retain a sense of mystery. I’d use something like, ‘The names ‘Turd. Firm Turd.’, ‘I used to be a real high-flyer, although you wouldn’t think it to look at me now.’, ‘I remember it like yesterday… The day everything changed.’ I’ll probably also use some fake reviews like on my last book.
I thought a good idea could be if the back cover is just really dirty and charred and the excerpts of text are on scraps of paper, which are burnt on the edges. The text should be in a typewriter sort of font, perhaps throughout.
Finally, here’s some examples of my progress and some finished pages.
Ta for readin,
Quim out!
