Inspired by a comment that @selfhelp4trolls left me on my previous post - Asking My Mom for Help - Part 2 - Getting Close to Finishing my Book, it so happened - this afternoon - that I created the drawing depicted above today's post.
It was done in a method that I had never used before ( which is kind of my style, as I tend to adapt and reinvent myself, especially when it comes to my creativity ).
I started out in a fairly normal way, by grabbing some paper and a ( fine liner ) pen. I decided to also grab some paint.
The theme I wanted to draw was based on a scene / chapter in my upcoming book, titled Fast Food. As it talks about the type of prey that predators pick and the book is about a character named Cold Turkey, who is a running bird, my mind decided to focus on race cars and put the bird inside one such a vehicle.
Now let's get back to the comment that selfhelp4trolls left on my last write up:
I always love when you mix photography with illustrations with MS paint 😝. I do hope you keep yourself to high standards and don’t settle (but also don’t overthink or put off!). Just imagine you are making my cover, I love it and so does everyone I’ve shown it to.
If you don't want to read that full post ( that I referred to earlier on ), his remark was related to me talking about making sketchies to illustrate my book.
The high standards part bugged me a little as I tend to think that my perfectionism stops me from finishing projects and often overcomplicates things but I also felt he has a point here.
Then the ( background ) photography vs illustrations part that he talks about, came to me, after I had finished my illustration.
I then walked outside ( in the blazing heat ) and took some pictures of the old Roman road next to the house that I'm renting.
I cut out my drawing with an old fashioned Stanley knife and, eventually ended up sticking it to my wall with adhesive tape by using a trick I learnt as a kid ( rolled up tape at the back of the drawing ).
I had transferred my camera's photos to my laptop ( that is attached to my movie projector and the road outside my house was now projected on a corner of my living room wall ( where I watch movies ).
It was actually after doing so that I sticked the drawing on the wall / road.
I then did a little bit of trickery in post, with my laptop's standard photo editor.
This one is for you @selfhelp4trolls !
I really hope that this also looks good in black and white,
as I plan to publish my book on Amazon kindle,
so people with E-readers can buy it too.
If not, I have some cool art to promote my book with or to use in any other way I come up with.
Alright, I'm gonna cut it short here. This part time introvert needs to be an extravert for a bit ( as is usually the case in the weekend ).
I'm pretty psyched though, that I managed to come up with this little art piece that I feel is way more than a mere illustration, let alone sketchie.
Now I think of it: one page illustrations in between the text / chapters might be pretty cool.
It's funny, as I had set out, this afternoon, to change my book's footnotes ( that are merely little jokes / extra information ) into end notes.
My mom had told me, after reading through my story, that the footnotes kind of bothered her and I understand. They interrupt the flow of reading.
The footnote to endnote process felt pretty much like a waste of time or, at least, very uncreative but I feel I totally made up for that with this hour or so of art-ing.
Until next time and viva a criatividade!
Wow, see! You got that magic in you. I knew you wouldn't like to hear that but that's just cause you are hypersensitive :-D High standards and perfectionist...can probably mean the same thing, but I think there are different kinds of perfectionism. You don't need to wait forever til you come up with the right idea or feel just right to work on it. I think this is what I learned from Japan...sometimes it just takes sitting an extra 2-3 hours with something and thinking about what would make it even better, as there is not real perfect, just better and better. We never get there, so I hope you aren't ticked by this comment
Love you bro, excited for this book
I love it!!!
Such a good idea to use the projector for the background, I love that I can see the shadow of the car on the wall, so much more natural than digitally added drop shadows :)
It's so exciting to see your book take shape! Thank you for sharing a bit of this process <3
It's nice to feel the excitement through your words. I could really use a comment like this, as I feel somewhat stuck creatively, as of late due to real life distractions. I can really use the encouragement. Thank you :<)
Big hug!
Go Cold Turkey go!!! You can do it, just make sure don't catch your snood in the seatbelt.
hahaha!
I'm contagious! XD
This kind of stuff isn't 100% fun and games, but if you're having enough fun with most of it, even the not fun stuff is tolerable XP
which is why I tell people it's time to stop if you're not mostly having fun/enjoying it
On the footnote thing, it doesn't necessarily interrupt the flow of reading. There's quite a few Pratchett books where he's had footnotes (some of them quite extensive) which really added to the hilarity if you read them (and occasionally provided some extra information/context) but otherwise were not essential to the story so could be ignored if you wanted to.
there is also a possibility that having read too many giant textbooks I'm used to glancing at footnotes and deciding whether or not I need to/can be bothered with paying attention to them
Though if you were to include them as footnotes I guess you'd have to watch your layout seeing as you're going to have illustrations.
Love the pic :)
Same here and this is exactly why I stopped some projects in the past, if I had the chance. Most of those were collabs though, where I had to make lots of compromises.
Thanks for giving me your point of view on footnotes. This is very helpful!
Hurray! It's kind of messy but it came from a good place.