I'm now working on some of the backgrounds for my illustrated children's book. I decided to do the backgrounds separate as a combination of acrylic/watercolour painting and collages of various materials, such as cobweb paper, textured cardboard and ink-stained gossamer ribbon. I'm doing this for three reasons: a) my painting/drawing skills aren't quite at a high enough standard where I can consistently paint landscapes well, and at this point in the year, I don't have time to make mistakes. Cutting and pasting different materials is faster and it is easier to see what it will look like while it's in progress, reducing the chance of it not turning out well. b) The combination of different materials and textures will create an interesting visual style for the images. And c) by doing the characters separate from the backgrounds, I can reuse backgrounds and have greater freedom in positioning the characters within the various environments, and it also means that if I mess up the character drawing, I only have to redraw the character, not the background as well. I want to try to get most of my backgrounds done over the next few days, and then I'll start working more seriously on my character designs.
Here is my first quick-and-dodgy background, a simple snowscape (acrylic):
And my second, a mountain sunset (acrylic, textured paper and gossamer ribbon):
And my third, a desert (acrylic, cobweb paper, textured paper and cardboard):
As always, Judgemental Dog tries his best to be supportive...
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That sounds awesome, Rebecca. I like the snowscape shot. Good idea to do the backgrounds and the characters separately, should save you a great deal of time and hassle. Best of luck in the coming week :)
ReplyDeleteRebecca ~
ReplyDeleteAudio-pronounciations and pop-up descriptions? Wow! This prototype sounds intricate...and as a reader, those features are sure to please...
The background is...well...good (I'm limited at what I know. It's beyond what I could manage to do - way beyond..lol). Painting is not something I'm good at. I don't think, anyway. Truth is, I've never really tried it. When you say acrylic, do you mean that the originals are hand done, but that you will upload them to computer to 'cut and paste' in other images (which will be hand drawn until you upload them)? Just wondering, as I don't know much about illustrating. I cannot wait to see your finished product! ~ Nadja
hehe Yep, some backgrounds (like the one above), are just going to be painted, while others will be constructed from other materials like felt and textured board. Basically I'll be cutting out the shapes I need and arranging them to form the background (eg. making trees out of felt and textured board and sticking them onto a painted background). All of the backgrounds will then be scanned onto my computer and (if necessary) adjusted in Photoshop. Then I'll hand draw and colour the characters, scan them as well and digitally chuck them into the illustration as well, so it'll be a bit of a dog's breakfast of art styles, but hopefully it will be effective lol
ReplyDeletelost me there couldn't even start to try and do anything so 'complicated' you make it sound so'easy' but ths wise old bird can see through you - its fiendishly clever - well done all the best and good luck for coming week
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