Story Art!: 2011

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

James Fullmer

The Perfect Model

So I was working on an illustration of a witch to go along with a poem, "Listen to the WItch." I had an idea that I wanted to try that would require a rather complicated and ghoulish lighting so I needed a reference. Where could I find a model who would pose exactly the way I wanted and perform just the expression I needed? Oh, and they had to be OK being used to paint an ugly witch.

MYSELF! BRILLIANT! I set the lights up high and behind me and put a silver reflector as the "table" so to reflect the haunting light up from below. It didn't end up as strong as I wanted but I was able to punch it in the illustration. I just needed information about where the light would reflect. The image was shot in RAW and so I could tint it how I wanted before exporting it to Photoshop. Now it may look perfect but it took me about 15 shots to get the angle of the face and the mouth. I had wanted to have poofy cheeks but my eyes open in a dreamy ecstasy but anatomically that just doesn't happen. There was more than enough information, however to paint from.

I decided to try it digitally and first sketched out the values and basic color scheme:

Afterward I rendered the shapes more and used digital color as well as the liquefy filter to make some adjustments to the original drawing. I used the smudge tool to do much of the blending.

www.jfullmer.com

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Ned Gannon

Here's the first three images of a dummy book I am trying to put together. I needed to fully render the first part of the book to demonstrate how the images will transition from a monotone for the real world to color for the boy's imagined world. There is some text but it is very minimal (like two sentences) otherwise, it is much like a Wiesner or other wordless stories in pictures. I hope to post pages to demonstrate how the story transitions to color (still working that out). The tentative title for the story is, "I Know Sometimes..." Please feel free to critique drawing quality, fluidity and other illustrative issues. While I don't want to rework everything, I have started to work in Photoshop more and correcting a panel or two is easier now.

www.nedgannon.com

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Maureen Blaney Flietner

What do you do when the power goes out?

I watch the moonlight transform familiar objects!

www.mbfcommunications.com

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Illustrator's Intensive with Laurent Linn of Simon & Schuster Publishing

SCBWI-WI hosted an Illustrator's Intensive on Saturday, June 25, 2011, with Laurent Linn, Art Director at Simon & Schuster Publishing. This was an opportunity for our illustrators to experience a shorter, faster version of the basic process an illustrator and art director go through to create a real picture book.

Each artist chose a 2-page spread from one of two supplied picture book manuscripts, created character sketches and submitted a final sketch to Laurent. He sent back insightful and inspiring comments on those sketches, just as if it were an actual job.

That's when the real learning started. Each illustrator presented their character sketches, original sketch and final illustration at the workshop. The illustrations were amazing! And it was interesting to see pieces of the same story presented in so many unique ways. At the end of the day we got to see what the actual published books look like.

This workshop was a great opportunity to learn from Laurent. He is kind, generous and really knows the business of children's illustration. We all came away with a better idea of what it's like in the real world of an art director.

Check out the Events page to see some of the sketches and final illustrations. You may be surprised to see how different many of the final illustrations are from their original sketches.