Songes Tome 2 Célia Cover Step by Step Part 3 Color

The final art for the Songes T2 Cover. 

Part 3 

COLOR

So this is the line art ready for color

INITIAL ROUGH IN

Coloring is done in Photoshop CS3 using an Intous Tablet.

Figures nailed down

I created a Klimt-esque background for the Arabian scene that I dropped in at the bottom...

Polishing

-reflection of sky on water

-lilies

-more depth on selecting figures

Final Color

- add light coming through the umbrella


-more detail to background brush

--next level of detail on the water reflection

-refine lily pads

 

- mostly the sky reflecting over the figures

-drew in more "grasses" in  foreground and background

PART 1

FALSE START

PART 2

REVISED LINE ART

TD

Songes Tome 2 Célia Cover Step by Step Part 2 Revised Line Art

The final art for the Songes T2 Cover. And here's a look at how I made the line art for it!

So, after rejecting the first version of the cover as discussed in PART ONE, I decided to make some changes and corrections to the line art.

The first thing I did was to firm up the characters in the reflection.

Next, I redrew the boy.

Then I redrew Coraline's face/hair and corrected bits of the drawing overall.

Most importantly, making sure she caught YOUR eye!

The art was then scanned and cleaned in Photoshop.

So, now I reassembled it all in Photoshop and added in the background digitally - just to give myself something to work off of.

And upside down without all the lilies and background.

The art is converted from Grayscale to Bitmap  (I discuss how I scan and prepare my art for Photoshop ...)

HERE

Next time in Part 3, 

COLORS!

PART 1

FALSE START

TD

Songes Tome 2 Célia Cover Step by Step Part 1 False Start

So, this is the final art for the Songes T2 Cover. And here's a look at the cover that wasn't.

So, sometimes you draw a cover and know all along it isn't right - here's a look at how that happened!

Here's my initial rough pencils for the Songes T2 cover - I tested the art in the cover template to see how we were doing...

Next, I nailed down the reflection....

Line Art

The lily pads were drawn on a separate piece of paper and dropped in digitally.

Artwork was drawn on 13" x 19" bristol board with HB Lead pencil.

Flats

Coloring is done in Photoshop CS3 using an Intous Tablet.

Something is nagging at me about this piece at this point...

Initial colors

One note, this was needed really quickly for solicitation and I think at this point I realized I was going to need a HECK of a lot more time to do this properly.

That nagging is getting stronger and stronger...

Final colors

At this point, I find the nagging problem -   the main figure is NOT looking at the camera... and what I drew is not necessarily wrong but it's just not pulling the viewer in.

Oh, well, the commercial world waits and I will have to fix this problem down the road, as in Bande Dessinée world, it takes a LONGTEMPS before the books ship.

C'est la vie!

Next time, a look at how I made the ACTUAL cover...

Part Two

LINE ART

TD

Songes Tome 2 Page 10 Step by Step

Here's how I made Songes Tome 2 Page 10. 

 The first step is alway the storyboard - to ease any problems in the translation - and  for the writer, Denis-Pierre Filippi, to approve before I draw the pages.The storyboards are done at 3 x 4 " on 8.5 x 11" paper with Blue and HB Pencil, Pitt Pens and Copic Markers.

Here's the beginning stage of the pencils.

Here's the scan of the pencils.

 Drawn on 13 x 19" 2 ply Bristol Board with Blue and HB Lead and borders ruled with .80 tech pen. So I shoot from these the pencils so they are very tight (for me)!

The lineart is darkened and cleaned in Photoshop and turned into a Bitmap.

The colors were done by Rebecca Rendon and me in Photoshop. The art was colored in Channels - a method I learned from Alex Sinclair.

TD