MistgriM – On the table.

Here is the last part in the making of two pages in the MistgriM book. I have tried to explain some of the things you see on the table. The tools I use for the most part in this is pencils (often B2) and then watercolor paint from Pelikan and watercolor paper. The colored markings on the illustration shows how I have thought the reading focus on the drawing is for this 2 pages.

Her er siste del i produksjonen av to sider i MistgriM. På bordet ser en akvarellpapiret som er tapet fast til bordet. Det er tegnet på med blyant (oftest brukt er B2) og vannmalingen som brukes er av merket Pelikan. De fargede strekene på arket viser hvordan fokuset for disse to sidene er, de røde strekene viser de første av sidene, mens den gule viser hvordan øynene trekkes videre bortover arket mot tekstområdet, her market i blått.

MistgriM – The making of two pages – part 4.

MistgriM – The making of two pages – part 3.

MistgriM – The making of two pages – part 2.

MistgriM – The making of two pages.

To show how much work that goes into the production of the book MistgriM, I have photographed the process of creating two pages from the book from idea to finished illustration. After creating a script for the story, I find out how every page is going to look.
For this page I have made a series of 5-6 sketches that I have made into the two you see in the sketchbook on top of the page. You can see that there is a small sketch in the corner showing how the full two pages is going to look, and then there is a closeup of the important part of this page, the figures who speaks together. You can also see a watercolor illustration on this page of one of the figures, that is made so I know how the figure is going to look in color before making the big image.

The image that is going to be the full two pages is here also been drawn with a pencil so I know how everything is going to be placed and going to look. If this part of the job is done with a clear line it takes away a lot of work later on. This is how everything look before I start painting, and painting this is about 1-2 week of work.

For å vise arbeidet som går inn i å lage MistgriM, har jeg fotografert prosessen med å lage to sider av boken fra ide til ferdige illustrasjoner. Etter at manus er laget for historien, lager jeg skisser for hvordan hver side vil se ut. Har laget 5-6 skisser som jeg har plukket fra og satt sammen til de to du ser i skisseboken. En kan se en liten tegning som viser hvordan begge sidene vil se ut, og en tegning som viser ideene for hvordan de viktige delene av sidene skal settes sammen. Det ligger også en malt illustrasjon som viser en av figurene for side, den er laget for å finne ut hvordan figuren skal være og hvilke farger den skal ha.

Tegningen som skal bli de to sidene har her blitt tegnet med blyant, så jeg vet hvor alt skal være og se ut. Hvis denne delen er gjort med stor nøyaktighet og rene linjer blir det enklere når en senere skal male. Arbeidet med å male ut disse to sidene tar omkring 1-2 uker.

Studio Toolbox: Grand Scan

I have had the problem of making illustrations that was bigger then my scanner. My scanner is the normal size A4, and it is a Canon CanoScan 1240 U. It is a normal scanner for photos and illustrations. My problem with it was that my drawings can often be bigger, say A3 or like for MistgriM as long as two sideways A4 in one drawing. If your scanning a picture using the scanner as it is, you will get the fade out with both color, shadow and focus on the drawing. And it is a big job to fix all the areas and reconstruct the image.

So I found that in order to get the scanner to work better, the edges of this scanner (and I guess a lot of others) is a plastic edge, so that you can put a A4-paper into the scanner easy. If this is removed from the scanner (a warning, doing things with your scanner can harm it, and you will probably not get your money back for things you have done with your scanner.) I also had to cut of some plastic parts to get everything flat, but the glass on this printer goes all the way out to the edge of the scanner. To avoid getting dust and other things into where the scanner parts is, I used some Scotch Magic tape along the edge. I don`t know if this is something you can do with every scanner so be careful, but it works for this scanner from Canon.

After removing the plastic that goes along the edges I have to be more carful when scanning The edges is there to avoid getting light into the scanner, so now it have to cover up the scanner glass plate on the long side edges of the scanner.

Also a nice thing to do is to use a big book to put upon you water color illustrations when scanning, or you will get areas that can be out of focus or is lighter than others. I use a book about trees from around the world (I can recommend the book both to hold paper flat on the scanner and to read and get information. It is a very good book about trees!) SO there you have it, you can go ahead and make that grand scanner.

Studio Toolbox: Coloring part 2.

Studio Toolbox: Coloring part 1.

Here is the third part of the making, this is about color.