My current process to create an illustrated novel

In this post I'm going to share the steps that my brother and I are taking in a streamlined, non-messy fashion. Of course the actual process has many steps and other aspects that are integrated or left out of these several clear steps, but these are the necessary components of how we're getting our ideas onto and into a finished copy to publish, after much exploration and more to come.

Step 1) Writing

Most of the writing is done on paper by hand or on the computer in Libre Office or X Mind. The scratch notes and ideas are then compiled and interlaced into an actual scene that contains characters and flow of conversation, rather than journal notes, incomplete phrases and monologue inquiries. It's passed back and forth through programs, but X Mind has a nice way to organize the actions of the characters or scene on the left, and the colour coded dialogue of the different characters in lines on the right. Then it may be taken from this format and re-placed into Libre Office to print and work on the scene on paper again as needed.

Step 2) Layout

Once the writing is done, the Layout is a simple process of getting a basic, rough idea of where text and images go together on a single page. The layout of this book is likened to something like Dinotopia or a children's book, but with words more spread out than single large paragraphs on each page. Each page has sketches like stick men or worse at this point, and scratchy coloured pencil to mark where the words of the characters will be placed along with the illustrations. We as authors can barely even understand what we're looking at here, but it's a necessary step in the process. When we can draw really good, really fast, this step will be more integrated with the next.

(Words in red coloured pencil. Super rough sketches in pencil.)

Step 3) Better Sketches

The next step is to draw out some images that would be understood if someone were to look at the page. We are taking standard office paper and sketching out each page in a rough, but much clearer form so that we can see where the final piece might end up. This is a big jump from the stick men, pillow head drawings from the Layout phase. This is done without adding any words to the page.

(Just one sketch example - different from the whole page as it's described)

Step 4) Photoshop text

I then scan these preliminary drawings into P.S. and throw them on a fixed template page that will eventually be the final format and file to print and publish. After doing this, I copy and paste the text from our Writing files and place them accordingly within the scanned sketch pages we have pasted and arranged in the document. This may require some adjusting and resizing of the images and words to make them fit together and not overlap. It is still in a rough format, but it is readable with the words and pictures together for the first time.

(Not an official sketch page. More images and words would be there.)

Step 5) Style Guide

The context of our story inspires many types of art. As a way to continue studying artwork in an academic sense, but directing this studying into a streamlined focus on moving the finished pages of the story along, I've started to create Style Guides for each page. In a sense, it's like doing colour thumbnails for a complete book, such as James Gurney did for Dinotopia, or others would do for movies and so on. In my approach, I'm using other people's artwork that I like and would like to emulate as an overlapping template to guide the visualizing of the finished page. The images carry a certain tone or style that symbolizes and emphasizes what I'm feeling from our story in this page, these words and image. After adding the text into Photoshop, I create a folder with many layers of other artwork I've dragged in over top of the sketches. The art is placed over top of the sketches as a guide to see the whole page with a representation of where the art could be in the end.

(The content of the artwork reference pictures won't necessarily match the content of the illustrations needed for the story, but the style and visual reference will influence the final versions.)

Step 6) Studies and Final Page Creation

With the Style Guide in place, I will first do master studies of the artwork I've selected for each page. Then I will draw the images on the page as they need to be in the story. I will carry some essence of my studies into my own artwork by aiming for the greatness that I see in the referenced art and at the same time creating a new piece that is directly framed into the story and the final pages of it. It will be as good as I'm able to do it at this time, and then I will move on to the next page. I may also have to do additional studying before drawing the final image. Say for example I have pasted a certain style over top of an area where I'm going to draw a character's head, but I don't know how to draw the character yet. I will have to draw the character, based off whatever photo reference or ideas I have for them, as well as the style inspiration, then combine the two together. I have to learn to study while I create this story, rather than learning to eventually create it one day far in the future when I'm 'better.' This is the surest way I've come up with to apply my education in art to the actual goal right now, which is the process of bringing this to a complete stage of readability. Thus, after this step, the images are all compiled into the printable Photoshop document to be read and enjoyed with flow and harmony. Then, we are ready to show it to everyone.

(Example: You'll see when it's done.)

What do you think? Share in the comments or on Social Media.

- When Anthony Was

Summer Term 2017 - 2/3 Months - August

Well, well, well.
It's been less of a drawing filled month than I initially planned, due to physical pain giving me the recognition that I need to balance some things out. I have a Critiqued Schoolism course with Jonathan Hardesty focusing on the Essentials of Realism to look forward to in November, and likely more exciting instruction to follow, but nothing on that now.

For now, I'm sketching more again, but not as intensely as I had been, because I need to rest up to be full speed again in November for Jon's course. 100% feeling great with my hands and arms as soon as possible is the goal, obviously. I've had some difficult days with not being able to fulfill my artistic desires, but in many ways I have learned lessons from this. I feel that the balance I've needed is showing up with new clues for me on what it is I want to say in my work. Naturally knowing technique and having skills in art is essential, but to be true to one's essence of expressing oneself is a more intricate skill. As Bruce Lee says, "to express oneself honestly is very difficult to do."
I'm not going to continue to understand what that true expressing is through craftsmanship alone, and there is no waiting on this to come later. I have to abide to the necessities of my deepening of truth before conforming to thoughts of needing to be better at drawing through training. This is the path that I am more centered in, the path of mastery of Self, before the path of mastering my expression in art. They both add to each other of course, so we can say they're one, but there are other things that help the discovering of Self too.

One of these things that I feel a fresh attraction to is Qi Gong. It has proven to me how tense my movements, physical positioning and especially my arms, legs and hands are. Through the practice, I am feeling even more tense in some ways, but also looser. It is the way things happen. Such as, when you start to meditate consistently, you are seeing the lack of freedom while entering freedom. When I drank Kangen water for a time, I started to really hydrate myself, and felt thirstier the more I drank. The same goes with floating in sensory deprivation tanks. When you fall asleep in one, it is because you need rest and you finally created the conditions that could allow for that to show up.

I came to the realization the other day that helped me find some balance. It is that I have three main life long goals, right now. The first is to cultivate and live a Dhamma life, which is a life lived in line with the laws of nature; one of compassion and selfless service. The second is to create the story that has formed over my years of creating and is now going to first present itself as an illustrated novel, but will morph into who knows what as it builds momentum as a published IP. The third is to become a master fine artist. I like all good art, but when I think about the one art that requires the highest skill in observation and execution, it is fine art. If I have that as my final goal, the art I make for my story or for anything else will naturally be better in quality because of the quality of execution I am striving for. I also think that that direct experience of viewing a piece of art up close, made out of a personal vision by the artist, channeled through their inspiration and out of their fingers, is the most intimate the artist and viewer can get. I think story has its own great glory, but in regards to visual storytelling without words, the idea of painting originals from my own essence of what I want to create seems to capture my goal-setting thoughts.

I'm not sure what this next month brings for practice. I want to connect with some other artists through social media and start to bring some of my imagination sketches to a more show-able form. I'm also going to work on my story and bring aspects of that to life. I'm writing a little every day and I find it is fun and insightful. I also want to continue to work on all my artistic skill sets, including getting some proper oil clay and tools to do some of that, but we'll see what I can get around to. I've also started to fill a small sketchbook from life observation and imagination. The goal is having it filled by the end of September. I'd like to digest some information that I've already looked at and just continue fighting the good fight, as the master Jeff Watts says.

Thanks for following my journey,
Anthony

Join me LIVE on Sundays - my new streaming channel on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/whenanthonywas

My Old Gouache Portraits - Analysis

After having some comrades give some critiques on these paintings, I went back and posted them side by side with the reference to have a fresh look. They were painted quite a few months ago, so seeing them now without being involved in the making of them, I've noticed many proportional errors and things I could have done better with how I placed my values and strokes too. I think more than proportional errors, in terms of size, are the planes that are skewed and inconsistent, which throws off the accuracy of the picture.

This first image of Krishnamurti has some major proportional issues. He looks 50 years older. The nose I think is well done, but the edge of the shadow underneath it makes the upper lip stand out, and creates a bit of a plane turn, as if he's got a floppy mouth like that of a Simpsons character. His eye is too high up and not dark enough on the top lid, under the brow and around iris/back of the white of the eye. I tried to put too many lighter values where the shadow is under the front of his brow. I should have melded it all into one dark. The eye on the left of the painting is okay but has some issues with how big the brow shadow and the iris shadow are and where they're located. Overall, the edges are all too hard and there's a lot of shapes that are out of proportion and misplaced. Edges in particular are the hair line, shadow by the ear, mouth shadows and neck shadows. A clearly disproportional shape is the back of his head, which is much more narrow in my painting. I think the background should be a darker value than I have it too. It IS darker than the lightest part of his face (forehead and nose etc.) It would be interesting to try going over this painting and fixing it in gouache, to see how well it reactivates and so on. I haven't tried that yet.

I think his nose is a bit big, but almost proportionally correct with the eyes. The bottom half of his face loses the symmetry and it seems his mouth is going forward with his chin. The mouth is on a different axis than the rest of the features. It has also been squished down with his chin being much longer in the photograph. Squinting my eyes when I look at it, I feel that I missed some shadows in the eyes that would fall under the top lids. I also have some very hard edges in the eyes that aren't in the photo. All the edges are sharp actually, other than the jaw line on the left side (from our view) and his clothes. The photo had his hair cut off, and I think that  adding some more hair that would lengthen his head might be good. The background could also be a shade darker, or a couple shades and the highlight on his hair is too strong. His collar is also blurred out and not a nice edge at all.

This one of Gandi may be the best of the group. The composition and contrast of values with it are more stark and make for a better image. The background is dark as it should be and the white cloth is a nice part of the picture. Overall the proportions are pretty good, but there are a few areas that could use better value judgement and greater edge control. One obvious thing is that there is a white spot in the shadow of his (from his view) right cheek. That ruins that shadow shape. Some spots are too bright, like on his mustache. And some areas that are probably a good light value are just not controlled well enough, and they look scattered and unpleasant. It's not good tiling (placing a stroke and leaving it as a shape.) It's got some good things though.

His eyes are big and his face isn't round or oval enough, as it is in the photo. I like the sense of rounded-ness of the eyes though. They really feel like they are balls in the head, though the left eye (from our view) does raise up and that does look like the photograph. There should also be some light above that eye lid, but there is not. I liked the eye highlights on the Gandi image more than these highlights though. They are too big here. The glabella shadow is much harder than the image and it should be a soft blending into the forehead. I also think I tried to inject too much information into the shadow side of his face, but could have made it all much simpler with less halftones. I think the symmetry of the axis' of the features are a bit off too and the chin needs to be bigger. The background has a window, but since I drew more that the photograph shows, I should have added the edge of the window pane that would be seen behind his head and above it. The values of that window should be lighter too. There are issues with the mouth shape and edges. The wall of the background should have a darker value too, more like how the bottom of the window is portrayed in the painting. The ear is also too small and should be darkened.

This one has some cool wet tiling to it. The values are definitely lighter in the painting and it would be better with more contrast. There are various shape proportional errors with the eyes, but I don't mind the look of them either. The nose is small and doesn't hold the same 3 dimensional weight and perspective as the photograph has. The value on his neck is too light and the hair by that side of the chin could be a little thicker and give the face more width with it. The edge of the face on the right side of the painting is also a bit narrow next to the eye which slims down his face too. The ear is very much blended into the hair and not seen at all, which could be okay but it's too smudgy. Overall though, this one has some things I like more than the other paintings. I think the edges are managed better and the whole image has been approached with a good amount of care.

That's my analysis on my first ever gouache portraits that I did a while back.

Thanks for reading.

- Anthony

Summer Term 2017 - 1/3 Months - July

Hi everyone,

This month I started a new selection of self-taught classes and things are well. I was enjoying the Studio Ghibli character design studies and also doing sculpting, which was not on the scheduled list of classes from my last blog post. The character studies are done in a new thing I started, which is a fan art sketchbook of the characters from stories that I think are the best. I have been poor at keeping consistent sketchbooks, so I feel that this way I will be only drawing things I really appreciate, and therefore won't get upset at bad drawings and won't give up and rip out my pages to get a blank sketchbook again. There are no bad drawings in a blank sketchbook.

Another interesting thing I started is a scrap book, which I paste personal writings, drawings and art and photographs by other artists into loose papers in a binder. The point of this is something borrowed from J.A.W. Cooper. It's a sketchbook, journal and scrapbook where I let myself freely go scatter-brain with images and words, but also analyze and observe connections that show up on the pages between my art, other picture I paste in, and writings. It's fun and proves to be useful for exploring my own insights and feelings, like a kind of therapy.

I have stopped drawing for the moment and for a week or two at least, as I describe in the last few paragraphs in this post. Please enjoy the insights and ramblings of my artistic path, listed by date.

 7.3.17

Today I had a difficult time getting motivated to do art. Or rather I was DE-motivated, unenthusiastic and felt the imposing forces of all the knowledge I feel I need to learn still and the skills that are not developed felt like long roads to walk, and I was impatient. So I messed around for a while, doing nothing much and feeling frustrated, but then I went to my brother and said, “I don't know what to do! I can't decide. I'm feeling stumped,” and so on. I just needed about thirty seconds or less and then I realized it was alright, not being able to go any further with my freak out, I started to feel better inside, and soon enough I was sitting drawing a landscape.

I really want to make the most of my art. And I don't know. It's cryptic to me to draw and paint intuitively yet academically. I want to inject more of the question, “what do I want to see? Do I like what I see? I'll change it to be how I like it,” into my practice. I know I have a keen visual preference for many things. I just need to translate that into my drawings, rather than simply having it when I observe things while not drawing.

I have to take on a big job and illustrate a good chunk of my story. It's a good amount of pictures/pages, and it's intimidating, yet it's what I'm going to do eventually, and I have to tackle it now to see it through to that moment when I will be doing it. It's all now, but how am I here? I'm thinking about making a gallery show of some kind. I need to do my own super personal, no-thought kind of work too. I just doodled a page and it was very interesting, opening, free and fun. It has no direction. Even my story has a sort of direction. Sometimes it's best not to when drawing to see how you might intuitively work out ideas and feelings into something magical and unexpected, without a plan.

7.8.17

I went hiking and felt that where I need to spend most of my time is in front of my computer/art desk doing art work. It is good to take short trips and do different things like hiking, which I don't normally do, but it just increased my desire and passion for my art practice. It was also interesting noticing that due to the conditions of mosquitoes being everywhere, we left early and our hike wasn't that relaxing or that exciting. It was more exciting getting ready for the hike, when I had to look up and find all the equipment I would need, buy it, and schedule and organize how we were going to do this hike. The steps to the goal are the exciting part. It is the same for art and it is easy to forget that the joy is in the process or journey to get to the next plateau, rather than the goals we might reach that we aim for.

When your arm hurts while drawing, but you don't want to break, it can be just as good to switch things up. I find that any tension from drawing in tight ways with graphite, ink or digital can be reduced by switching to charcoal, or sculpting. Or just watch demos etc when you need to. There are ways to continue.

7.9.17

I decided not to do Vincente Romero studies for the next three months. I like his work, but I am better off studying figurative works by the Watts Atelier teachers, because they are drawing in the same medium and they have more detailed anatomy in their drawings. Therefore, I can learn to see this anatomy and also learn to render like them. I thought Vincente would lend me to being able to shade and tone with charcoal better, because of his smooth, graded pastel work, but I think that might be a hindrance right now. The subtlety will come over time, through other works too, like landscapes. I don't see a lot of information regarding the anatomy in Vincente's pieces. That is not to say he doesn't know it and might like to leave it out, which makes sense for smooth female skin, but it is not as helpful when I would like to see what I'm drawing, and copy less.

7.27.17

There's not as many notes here as previous months, but I'll try to remember some insights that I didn't jot down when they came. A most recent and evident one is that my hand has been overworked. As a combination of drawing, typing, mouse-using, sculpting and every other thing I do in daily life, my right hand has been tweaking and needs a good break. Before going away for 10 days to the meditation center a while back, I noticed this to a lesser degree, and felt it was a good time to stop for a while. This may be a sign that doing 40 hours a week is too excessive for the body.

Something that I can include now, to continue getting 40 hours a week, but have it be less of a strain on my hands is visualization. I heard about this statistic of how two groups of people trained in basketball, but one group rarely practised with a ball, but instead would visualize it. They did even better than those who worked with the ball in the end of this experiment. I will spend art sessions visualizing practice instead of tangibly using a tool. I know that this manifestation/visualizing works from previous experiences of bringing things into fruition in life, but I haven't considered it so directly with imagining myself drawing a skull, or what have you. It'll work well too since I can visualize things that I've already practised from the Watts Atelier program and therefore practice my memorization skills of these things in a very direct way – straight in the mind.

I have invested in a better keyboard and mouse/mouse pad so that I am more ergonomically sound. I also realize that since streaming I started to draw more with less breaks, and need to take those breaks and stretch my hands for longevity. The point I made in a previous journal also applies here, where switching mediums up is essential for longevity too.

I won't be doing drawing for a week or so though, at least, to heal my hands. I can only draw for 15-20 minutes right now before they are feeling damaged. Not good. So it's time for break, recalibration and visualization.

I think I got a lot out of the visualization I've tried already. Also from breaking. When not being able to draw, I was stumped on what to do with my energy/time. It's also difficult when most things are hand-used, not just drawing related. So it's time for some reading, light-typing/writing, meditating and reviewing old drawings etc.

This month's practice has been halted to a degree, but I'm still feeling good about it all and know it's important to rest now to come back stronger later.

Links to social media are all at the top of the page, under the header photo.

Thanks for reading,
Anthony

Summer Term Starts Tomorrow!

It's here!

Tomorrow I switch curriculum and start doing new classes. My Summer Term (2017) will go for the next two and a half to three months; the months of July, August and September. I may use mid September to October as a bit of a transition period into the next classes of the Fall Term and start exploring the new classes I will be moving into at that time. We'll see. For the meantime, these are the new things I'll be working on each week for this term.

SUMMER TERM 2017 – July/August/September

Story Writing and Design

Adding this as a class so that I make sure to do some dedicated work on my personal project on the writing side of things.

Kazua Oga/StudioGhibli Landscape Studies and Landscape Painting Compositional Motifs

This class I will be studying landscape painting motifs and studying and analyzing these motifs in the works of Studio Ghibli.

Watts Atelier Head Phases

Continue moving my way through the Watts Atelier head drawing phases.

Watts Atelier Figure Phases

Continue moving my way through the Watts Atelier figure drawing phases.

Torso Anatomy (front and back)

This class's focus is on learning/memorizing the anatomy of the torso through emulation and simplification.

Michael Hampton Figure Invention

This class's focus is on digesting and practicing all the information in M. Hampton's figure drawing book.

Vincente Romero Master Studies

Studying the work of Vincente Romero.

Realistic Portraits by Jason Seiler (Schoolism class)

Learn from Jason Seiler about how he draws portraits and heads.

Fan Art Character Studies

Studying characters from my favorite films and series' for exploring design/story telling.

Creature Invention - Anatomy and Essentials of Realism (Schoolism classes)

Invent and refine designs of creatures I've started for my story, applying the information in these Schoolism courses I did.

Animation

Learn and practice and play.

My Spring Term didn't have as many classes as you see here, but I plan on doing as much as I can each week with maintaining a balanced practice of the four disciplines (landscape, portrait, figure and still life.) Many of these classes can be linked together, such as the three figure classes, the head ones too. As long as I get something in for each discipline and am consistently learning and applying what I'm learning, I'll be good.

Continue to visit my social medias to stay tuned up with my practice, and keep those pencils sharp!