











| |
The Design Process
In brief, the process of illustrating, more or less followed this
pattern:
 | Ideas – Reading through the manuscript, already roughly subdivided into
pages, and noting down perhaps two, three or four ideas for accompanying
illustrations, depending on the range of the text. |
 | Research – books, Google images, material from Charles’ own research, into
both this era and the Battle of Fulford in particular, in order to inform my
concepts for each subject (and provide a few clues as to the historical detail).
|
 | Development drawings - some initial sketches for each noted illustration.
These varied wildly in number, with unfamiliar subject matter receiving far
more extensive treatment (I drew a lot of galloping war horses) than, say,
character pieces where I had already arrived at a ‘look’ for a particular
historical figure. |
 | Drafting out a ‘final’ drawing for each illustration onto heavy cartridge
paper. I chose this medium over watercolour paper chiefly because of the
volume of drawings there were, but also because the quality of the bleached
paper presented an easy drawing surface and lent a vibrancy to the
watercolour, when applied, that is sometimes lost on more textured, absorbent
papers. |

 | Ink outline – defining the pencil drawing with black fine-liner . This
ensured all the details I wanted from the sketch were visible before I began
applying the paint, and allowed me to then remove the (sometimes a little
messy…) pencil from behind the image to give a cleaner line. |
 | Watercolour painting – my absolute favourite bit, but quite
time-consuming; the nature of the paint (as anyone who has used watercolours
will doubtless be aware) requires the image to be built up in stages (unless
you’re aiming for an effect, like slightly ethereal underwater luminescence,
perhaps – for which there was no call in this particular project…). |

 | There had been a suggestion, at the fine-liner stage, that we might
consider colouring the line drawings in Photoshop but it was clear from the
test pieces (using an illustration which didn’t make the ‘final cut’) that
this wouldn’t provide an adequate finish: |
Watercolour Painted image |
Computer painted image |
 |
 |
 | Scanning and ‘tweaking’ – all the images then had to be scanned to create
digital versions that could be inserted into the digital book file. Most of the
finished images seemed to have survived the process in reasonably good shape,
but there were a few over which I had to wave the Photoshop wand in order to
arrive at an image that I felt would work for the book layout. Also, as most of
the painting took place over the relatively warm, dry summer months (no,
really), the atmospheric conditions demanded that I work quickly in order to
prevent unsightly paint/water lines appearing where they weren’t wanted – this
wasn’t always possible (for a number of, largely uninteresting, reasons) so the
Photoshop stage was an important one. Photoshop was also used to remove the
‘paper-coloured’ space around the finished image and give a clean edge that
wouldn’t show up in the printed book - although the cartridge paper used was
‘white’, it had no chance of matching the shiny, brilliant-white of the digital
blank page! |
| |
Interesting links
Events
|