For all of my Kickstarter contributors who may have not heard already - everything physical has been shipped.
You read that right, folks! Both paperback black and white and hardback colour editions are on their way to you! RIGHT NOW! OH MY GLOB!
Both editions together.
I'm so excited to hear how people enjoy the books once they receive them!
Non-Kickstarter editions will also be available really soon, for anyone thinking that they might make a nice festive present for someone else (hint hint) and the E-Book edition should be following shortly, too!
While there is still some back and forth going on between my designer and Lightning Source, I'm delighted to say that all the cards and Journals have arrived!
As the books will be posted separately anyway, many of these are already winging their way towards contributors.
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The cards are 100% recycled stock and have printed up beautifully. They are A6 format and will be packaged with envelopes. The interiors are all blank, so you can fill them with whatever whimsy makes you and the recipient most happy!
The notebooks/journals ended up even fancier than I first planned. They are A5 size with a 300gsm matt finish soft cover and 64 internal pages. Small inked illustrations from the book adorn every few pages.
I'll be setting up an Etsy store very soon, should you want to buy any further notebooks or cards.
I've been busily working on the rewards for the last couple of weeks, and I'm now very excited to be able to show you more.
First off, my backer Marin requested a picture of Mr. Toad, either doing something amusing or otherwise enjoying himself. I hope I managed to fulfil both criteria!
For Ben, a drawing of Mr. Badger pursuing one of his hobbies:
For my Dad, a sly and cunning weasel:
And for Hayley, Mr. Badger and one of his creations:
It seems like a few people were confused over my last update, believing that all my illustration work was done. Actually, I'd finished all the drawing and painting, but there was still all the digital compositing and editing and cutting out that needed to be done on many illustrations, which took the last couple of months.
But now, today, as of just this minute, ALL of the illustrations for the colour book are done.
DONE!
I'm currently uploading them to my editor, and I expect she'll have the layout back to me within a week. Which means we'll be only a few steps away from getting a proof from Lightning Source, and then THE BOOK!
It is with a great amount of relief and joy and relief and pleasure (and relief, did I mention relief?) that I can finally announce I've finished all the drawing and hand-painting work on all the illustrations. There's still a fair amount of editing to be completed, so it's not quite so huge an announcement as saying everything is done, but the end is certainly very much in sight now.
Today I also wanted to share with you a bit of an overview of how much work is involved in each illustration. For this book I've been working in a hybrid traditional and digital way, doing both pencils and watercolours by hand and then compiling them digitally. Although I'm very comfortable working exclusively traditionally, I find this hybrid style produces an end result that is cleaner and crisper for printing, but still retains the charm and texture of traditional work.
Sketching
Everything starts with a sketch. Then another. And another. Then I decide none of them are right, make a cup of tea, and do several more. Eventually, a sketch emerges that I'm happy with.
Drawing
I use thin paper (not quite tracing, but semi-transparent) and draw my final pencils on new paper. This is something I do whenever I have multiple characters or a lot of action. If the initial sketch is simple enough, I will usually do the final drawing directly over it.
Painting
Using a photocopy and transfer paper, I transfer the pencils onto watercolour paper, then paint in with watercolours. I then scan both the pencils and colours in.
Compositing
I make the pencil layer transparent and touch up the watercolour layer so it fits to the lines. I add shading and another digitally inked layer. If the illustration has no background, this will also mean cutting out everything around the colour and pencil layers, and re-pencilling the outlines on the whole drawing. I'm feeling slightly tired just thinking about how many drawings I've done this to.
Drinking Tea
Extremely important: tea break.
Finishing
Colour balancing, more inking, checking against previous drawings for consistency, possibly a dash more tea, tweaks and formatting.
The guard stoats on the bridge throw a rock into Ratty's boat and sink Toad (Chapter 12).
All in all, the whole process for each image takes 12+ hours. I had honestly thought when I first started that the smaller vignettes would be quicker and easier, but as I continued to draw I realised they needed just as much attention and detail as the larger spreads. As the work progressed, I also returned to many of the earlier images to touch them up, add more detail or, in some cases, redo them completely.
A side-by-side comparison of work I've had to heavily edit and improve
I know this has taken a lot longer than I predicted, and I am grateful for everyone's patience. We're on the home stretch now!
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