Wind In the Willows: Field Mice Illustration Process

Later this year, IDW will be releasing my illustrated edition of the Kenneth Grahame classic Wind in the Willows. The book will be Grahame's original text, with over 70 illustrations by me.

For this week's blogpost, I'm going to share the process of one of the b&w illustrations from Chapter 9: Wayfarers All:

"Many were digging and tunneling busily; others, gathered together in small groups, examined plans and drawings of small flats, stated to be desirable and compact...Some were hauling out dusty trunks and dress-baskets, others were already elbow deep packing their belongings; while everywhere piles and bundles of wheat, oats, barley, beechmast, and nuts lay about ready for transport."

It was very hard to narrow down all the moments in the book to choose to illustrate. In chapter 9 Rat goes on a early fall walk to find the field mice getting ready to leave the fields, which will be soon ready for harvest, packing up all their belongings and planning for the future. One of the troubles with illustrating this book is scale. At times the animal characters seem that they could be tiny, their appropriate size in our world, while at other times they must be somewhat bigger, or even the size of tall children. With the mice pacing up all the natural harvest items, it made that job more difficult, but I opted to not include Rat, so that his size relation to them is not known. I sketched out several mice hauling, packing, and looking at plans.

I then scanned those pencil sketches and in photoshop, composited them into a layout that told the story. I tinted each mouse a different color so I could see where the mess of lines for one ended and the mess of lines for another began. Instead of redrawing the vertical bundles of wheat (or barley), I copied and pasted the sketch several times over to build up the shape of the mass I wanted behind the mice.

The digitally composited sketch was then printed out at-size (about 11" x 7") and then taped to the back of a sheet of 300 series Strathmore Bristol. On a light box I was able to see through the bristol's surface to the printout so I could ink on the bristol using the sketch as a guide. For pens, I used Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs). Here I have two in-process photos I took with my phone and posted back when I was inking this piece.

Drawing and inking mice for this book took a conscious brain-shift to do. I wanted them to look like my drawings, but not like Mouse Guard Guardmice. The bodies are obviously different proportions, and that was easy to get around because of the clothes, but altering the features of the eyes, inner ears, and even some of the shape of the face took some concentration.




With so much going on in this piece, I needed to focus on the textures. Not only are the natural items important to texture and give a pattern to, but so are the clothes, the variations in fabric, and the tonality of the various trunks, dress baskets, and boxes.

Here you can see the completed image as it will appear in the book along with 49 other B&W illustrations and 20 color.

Wind in the Willows from IDW will be available Fall of 2016 and is available to pre-order on Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/Wind-Willows-Illustrations-David-Petersen/dp/1631403435

For all my other Willows Process Posts:

http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/search/label/Willows

2017 Appearances coming soon...

Wind In the Willows: Badger's Entry Illustration Process

Later this year, IDW will be releasing my illustrated edition of the Kenneth Grahame classic Wind in the Willows. The book will be Grahame's original text, with over 70 illustrations by me.

For this week's blogpost, I'm going to share the process of one of the b&w illustrations from Chapter 4: Mr. Badger:

"The Badger, who wore a long dressing-gown, and whose slippers were indeed very down-at-heel, carried a flat candlestick in his paw and had probably on his way to bed when their summons sounded."

It was very hard to narrow down the moments in the book to choose to illustrate. At the start of chapter 4, The character of Badger is revealed to not only the reader, but also to the character Mole.

The illustration depicts Rat & Mole tumbling in out of the snow of the Wild Wood and into Badger's front entry way. I drew the characters separately on pieces of copy paper so that I could compose the image together and make adjustments to all of them individually.

Once the sketches were scanned, I started assembling a final composition. I tinted each character so I could easily see them amongst each other as well as the digitally drawn in background.
I didn't draw much of a background in my sketches, and instead of using another sheet of copy paper, I broke out my rarely used wacom tablet to draw in Badger's entry way.


The digitally composited sketch was then printed out at-size (about 11" x 7") and then taped to the back of a sheet of 300 series Strathmore Bristol. On a light box I was able to see through the bristol's surface to the printout so I could ink on the bristol using the sketch as a guide. For pens, I used Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs). Here I have an in-process photo I took with my phone and posted back when I was inking this piece.

Other than the cover, this was my first illustration with Badger, so I started by inking him in first. His robe is based on the way Arthur Rackham used for Badger back when he illustrated the book.


I'm terrible at tracking time as I work, sometimes I think because I'd rather not know, but I think I only inked this piece for one long night. I did have to re-work some of the perspective for the beams right on the page. And I did use some white correction fluid for the snow on the left and to fade out the brightening effect from the candle on the right.

Here you can see the completed image as it will appear in the book along with 49 other B&W illustrations and 20 color.

Wind in the Willows from IDW will be available Fall of 2016 and is available to pre-order on Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/Wind-Willows-Illustrations-David-Petersen/dp/1631403435

For all my other Willows Process Posts:

http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/search/label/Willows

2016 Appearances:

New York Comic Con: Oct 6-9

2017 Appearance Dates Coming Soon...

Wind in the Willows: Toad in Hiding Illustration Process

Later this year, IDW will be releasing my illustrated edition of the Kenneth Grahame classic Wind in the Willows. The book will be Grahame's original text, with over 70 illustrations by me.

For this week's blogpost, I'm going to share the process of one of the b&w illustrations from Chapter 8: Toad's Adventures:

"Toad jumped, rolled down a short embankment, picked himself up unhurt, scrambled into the woods and hid. Peeping out, he saw his train get speed again and disappear at a great pace."

It was very hard to narrow down all the moments in the book to choose to illustrate. In chapter 8 Toad has escaped from jail and is on the run from the law disguised as a washerwoman. Just before this illustration he's had the aid of a train engineer who slowed the train down to allow Toad to make a jump for it before the pursuing police catch up to the train. Many illustrators have drawn toad aboard the train shoveling coal, or the leap itself, but I chose to show the terror in Toad's eyes watching afraid he may have been seen as the surrounding wilderness eats him up visually.

The pencil rough you see above was fairly complete as-is. So, when I scanned it into photoshop to re-size for the final illustration I may have only made a slight digital tweak here or there, but mainly I wanted to add in some shading notes for myself for inking.

The digitally composited sketch was then printed out at-size (about 11" x 7") and then taped to the back of a sheet of 300 series Strathmore Bristol. On a light box I was able to see through the bristol's surface to the printout so I could ink on the bristol using the sketch as a guide. For pens, I used Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs). Here I have an in-process photo I took with my phone and posted back when I was inking this piece.

I inked this while on a trip to Alaska for a children's reading event & presentation tour. It was done at the breakfast table of a dear friend (and friend to all books & book-lovers) Greg Hill.



Because I was traveling as I worked on and off this piece, I didn't track my time very well. Like I said above, I know I finished the bulk of it in Greg Hill's kitchen. The inking trick with this piece was all the cross-hateched shading and knowing how much or little to add. It was as I was adding the lines to the eyes that I was the most nervous.

Here you can see the completed image as it will appear in the book along with 49 other B&W illustrations and 20 color.

Wind in the Willows from IDW will be available Fall of 2016 and is available to pre-order on Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/Wind-Willows-Illustrations-David-Petersen/dp/1631403435

For all my other Willows Process Posts:

http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/search/label/Willows

2016 Appearances:

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 2-4
New York Comic Con: Oct 6-9

Wind in the Willows Jacket Process

The illustrated edition of Wind in the Willows I'm doing with IDW Publishing was announced last week. The Wind in the Willows has long been a favorite of mine. I love talking animal stories and I don’t know that they get better than Kenneth Grahame’s. This has also been a bucket list project for me, something I needed to illustrate before I die. This project started in 2014, and a combination of its intensity as an illustration task and other projects & commitments has led us to a release of Oct 2016.

Pre-Order on Amazon -or- Through your Local Comic Shop using Order Code: JUN16 0571

For this week's blogpost I'm going to detail the process I used for creating the jacket cover (a wrap around, like Mouse Guard books)


Because books are often judged by their cover, I wanted to make sure Wind in the Willows is perceived as an ensemble cast book with 4 main characters, rather than just "Mr. Toad & his Wild Ride". I chose this moment from chapter 6: Mr Toad:

"They reached the carriage-drive of Toad Hall to find, as the Badger had anticipated, a shiny new motor-car, or great size, painted a bright red (Toad's favourite colour), standing in front of the house. As they neared the door it was flung open, and Mr. Toad, arrayed in goggles, cap, gaiters, and enormous overcoat, came swaggering down the steps..."

The sketches for the characters were fairly straight forward. I'd drawn them a few times previously just for fun, so the only decisions I was making was getting postures right for the scene (Badger anticipating Toad's antics, Rat & Mole a bit nervous about them, and Toad strutting proud about them) and locking in on their proportions.



For the setting, I opted not to make a model of Toad Hall, but to do a front facade rough drawing (I only drew half of it and then mirrored it). It's thoroughly based on Mapledurham House, the same house E. H. Shepherd used as reference when  he illustrated Willows back in 1960.

Using my rough, I enlarged and refined the Toad Hall drawing with the motor-car drawn in that I found era-appropriate reference for.  and used the composite of all the sketches as my pencils/layout for the jacket wraparound. Having every character drawn separately allowed me to position them and resize them for scale as I needed. In this step I also planned space for the spine of the book and tested the book's title and bylines. The yellow border was my visual note for where the "trim" line and where the "bleed" are.

I printed that digitally composited layout out on several sheets of copy paper to a size of 22" x 15" and taped that to the back of a big sheet of Bristol. On my lightbox I was able to see through the surface of the Bristol to the printout underneath. I inked using Copic Multiliners. Because this jacket was to also be in color, I didn't render the textures as heavily as I may have if this had been a strictly black & white illustration. Below you can see a few photos I took with my phone as I made my way across the piece:

Once all the inking was done, I scanned the artwork. This took a few passes on may scanner (11" x 17") and some careful re-assembly back in Photoshop. Then I flatted in all the color for the piece. The term 'Flatting' in coloring refers to adding in flat color, no rendering, no effects, just color swatches. This step is like a grown-up version of coloring inside the lines (even when sometimes the lines aren't closed off...so no fill-tool here folks). I'd decided on most of my color choices for this piece before I started (I had previous character illustrations to pull from and the notes from the text as well as Mapledurham House).

I rendered the color in Photoshop using a textured brush and the Dodge (Lighten) & Burn (Darken) Tools. This is done in same way I render any Mouse Guard piece or freelance cover/pinup I've covered here on the blog. In this step, I also established a few color-holds (places where I paint the inkwork to be a color rather than just black) on the motor-car's glass parts and Toad, Rat, & Badger's clothes.


The last step was the Text...but, the Title text needed a better treatment than to just sit on the art. It could easily get lost in the details of Toad Hall above Toad's head, and I didn't want to just apply an outline or shadow behind the type for it to stand out, so I inked a wreath border the type could sit in. I found a stock border to use as inspiration, but then populated the foliage with willow leaves and cat tails. Because this is a separate piece it can be easily removed from the jacket art for use as a stand-alone illustration.



It’s been tremendously difficult to illustrate as I’m trying to live up to the spirit of the original text while living in the shadows of illustrators like E. H. Shepard, Arthur Rackham, Inga Moore, and Robert Ingpen (among many others) who have visualized this tale in ways impossible not to be influenced by. The challenge of doing this story right has lead me to push my work further than I ever have, and I think my artwork will be forever changed by it for the better.

Wind in the Willows can be Pre-Ordered on Amazon 

-or- 

Through your Local Comic Shop using Order Code JUN16 0571

For all my other Willows Process Posts:

http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/search/label/Willows

2016 Appearances:

Heroes Con: June 17-19

San Diego Comic Con: July 20-24

Boston Comic Con: Aug 12-14

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 2-4

New York Comic Con: Oct 6-9

Hogwarts RPG Character illustrations

I've been playing a home-made Hogwarts RPG with some artist friends  at conventions after the con-floor closes. The system is a loose adaptation of some of Luke Crane's Burning Wheel mechanic of 6-sided dice rolled as pools. 1-2=failure dice, 3= 1/2 success dice, 4-5= successful dice, and a 6 is not only a success but can be rolled again to possibly add more successes. The Game Master sets an objective number for a task/obstacle/spell (ie: 3 successes) and based on their traits, their year level, house bonuses etc., the player rolls a certain amount of dice to try and achieve that objective. Most of the game isn't about rolling dice though, it's about solving puzzles, interacting with other players, unfolding a story, and meeting Non-Player Characters (NPCs).

An artist's favorite part of playing an RPG usually includes drawing the characters. And I'm no exception. So each session, I work on creating a visual for the players for at least one of the NPCs. For today's Blogpost (celebrating the date students should be departing Platform 9-3/4 and boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first day of school) I'm sharing the Character portraits for our adventure so-far.

Lukas Hadley: I'll start with my student NPC. Lukas is a Brave, Ambitious Mischivious 2nd year Gryffindor. While the other players start at 1st year, I created a 2nd year who would be able to reasonably show them the ropes or explain things to them in the game, but without being so advanced as to just be able to do difficult tasks for them. I made him a Gryffindor for two reasons. 1) I'm a Gryffindor and he's my representation in the game, and 2) Because they are in a different house, he won't always be there to help. Lukas had a pet toad named Olaf at the start of the adventure...but more on him later.

Theodore Thelonius Thadwick III: Theodore is Adam Withers' character (and this is his illustration of him). He's a short Compassionate, Clever, & Studious Ravenclaw first year. His family, who bully him a bit, are all Gryffindors, and he was relieved to be sorted into the house where "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." He has a pet pygmy owl he calls Captain Hootley and can often be found studying the daily prophet, books in the library, or his own notes to solve the mysteries of the adventure.

Symphony "Sparks" Chamberlain: Symphony is Comfort Love's character (and this is her illustration of her). Symphony is a first year tough, mischievous, leader who is not happy about being in Ravenclaw or even coming to Hogwarts at all. Her parents were supporters of you-know-who, and after his demise and their placement in Azkaban, she went to live with relatives just before coming to Hogwarts. She'd rather be with her Mom and Dad who she "knows" aren't evil. She's been in detention a few times, docked house points, and even summoned to the Headmaster's office for a talking-to. But, Symphony isn't giving up her idea that Hogwarts is a prison. 


Johnny Claire: Johnny is Jesse Glenn's character (and this is his illustration of him). He's a Mischivious, nimble, charming Ravenclaw first-year with a pet cat named Toblerone Bone. Johnny has purchased banned fireworks from Lukas, wandered the corridors at night, and burgled the Defense against the Dark Arts professor's office with Lukas taking a grey and wrinkled hand of glory. In the most recent session, Johhny found an old slip of parchment in his borrowed homework texts about a mirror on the 4th floor.

Jack Hume: Jack is Nate Pride's character (and this is his illustration of him). Nate started playing the game a few adventures in when Jesse couldn't join us. We explained the discrepancy with Jack being the patient zero of a Dragon Pox outbreak as soon as he arrived at Hogwarts. By the time Jack was getting well, the Jesse's character Johnny had contracted it and was in the hospital wing getting treatment. Jack is a compassionate, nimble, good-flying first year with a pet toad.

Gallus Draganov: Our game is taking place the first full school year after Harry's Parents are killed, when he is still a baby and Voldemort was "less than the meanest ghost". Snape has just arrived to teach this year, and so he is not the head of Slytherin House. I created Prof. Draganov to take that mantle. He is also the Defense Against the Dark Art Professor. The players have found that he is from somewhere in Eastern Europe that speaks with a vaguely Russian accent where he was an Auror (Dark Wizard Hunter). I wanted him to look cold and dapper. 

Silvanius Kettleburn: In this time period at Hogwarts, Hagrid did not yet teach Care of Magical Creatures. Up until Harry's third year it was taught by Professor Kettleburn (He retired to spend more time with his remaining limbs). There is some information about him through various Wikis and Pottermore, but I didn't find much of a description of him (other than the specifics of which limbs he is missing). So I blended Col. Mustard from Clue (1972 edition) and Warwick Roost from my Eleanor Oddbody pitch. Baby fire-crabs are crawling on his hat and shoulder to help illustrate his subject.

Baby Griffin: In the course of the adventure. A wounded baby griffin is found on the school's grounds. The players are trying to figure out what caused it's injuries and if it has any link to some muddy footprints that lead out from an upper window in the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor's office. What is known is that the griffin ate Lukas' pet toad Olaf. Lukas has no love lost for the beast, which is being co-cared for by Prof. Kettleburn and Hagrid. Theodore (Adam's character) has christened the Griffin "Feathersby"

Margot Pebblebrook: This 6th year is the female prefect for Ravenclaw and she's also the captain of their Quidditch team. She is tired of the players talking chances that would ruin Ravenclaw's chances of winning the House Cup. In one session, Nate Pride's character, who is good at flying talked to her about possibly seeing if the rules could be bent for him to play on the house team...but since I don't want to contradict the Potter books, no first year will have played on the house team before Harry for about a hundred years and Nate's character Jack has become the equipment manager (giving him access to that equipment, including school brooms). Note: I went with the book's coloring of blue & bronze for Ravenclaw instead of the movie's blue and white/silver

Aaron A. Aaronson & Kelvin Slydil: With a school full of young witches and wizards, the players need to have some other character names/personalities to bounce off of. These two were characters I didn't give any forethought, but invented in the moments students were needed in the adventure. They are a bit stereotypical in their archetypes. Aaron is inexperienced and excitable while Kelvin is aloof and snotty.




Filius Flitwick: The familiar and diminutive Charms Professor has shown up many times in the adventure so-far. Not just because he's one of the player's teachers, but because he's also the Ravenclaw head of house. I tried to blend together both movie versions of the character (He was played by Warwick Davis, but after the 2nd movie underwent a dramatic makeeover/re-design) along with my own ideas about Flitwick.

Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore: At the start of the adventure, after the players and their fellow arriving first years traveled across the lake and into the Great Hall for sorting and the start of term feast, it was Dumbledore who gave the exposition for the adventure with his notices and speech. He introduced the teachers and waxed on about how the wizarding world had much to celebrate and recover from with the death last year of Voldemort. And on one occasion, so far, a player has been sent to see the headmaster's office.

Minerva McGonagall: So-far in the adventure, McGonagall's role has been to sort the first years and a few interactions in Transfiguration class. However, I think she could become a move important NPC as the sessions go on since she is both deputy headmistress and also head of Lukas' house (and therefore the disciplinarian when he ends up in trouble). For my drawing, I tried to avoid the Maggie Smith look and was instead inspire by photos of Margaret Hamilton, the acress who played the Wicked Witch of the West (as well as Ms. Gulch) in the 1939 Wizard of Oz.



Severus Snape: Besides Potions classes, Snape's most prominent part of the adventure has been when he filled-in for an absent Professor Draganov in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Symphony (Comfort's character) didn't care for his lesson, and so she wrote out suggestions on how he could improve his teaching...and presented it to him the next day at a meal in the great hall. Dumbledore, in a timely fashion, interrupted and escorted Snape off for a nightcap before he could really let Symphony have it (though he did turn the note to smoldering ash in his fingertips).

Rubeus Hagrid: The most enjoyable NPC for me to play. Having listened to the audio books (both Fry and Dale) I mimic the voice as best as I can while using the character for a bit of humor or help to the players. He's been excited to watch over and care for the wounded baby gryphon. This was my 2nd take on drawing Hagrid for the adventures. I abandoned an earlier version about half-way in because the expression and overall hair shape was just not who I saw as the character.



Argus Filch: The crotchety, student-hating, and gnarled Hogwarts caretaker has popped up a few times in the adventure, mostly to catch the players out-of-bounds in the castle or roaming around at night. For my drawing of him, I used reference from the actor who played him in the movies: David Bradley. I couldn't really think of any visual way to improve on that actor's portrayal of Filch, so I went with it.



Pomona Sprout: As head of Hufflepuff House, she's had little to do so-far in the game (No players or NPCs are Hufflepuff students), but she has made an appearance in teaching the players lessons about magical plants like Dragon's Snare. Part of the trouble of roleplaying Hogwarts lessons, is that Rowling doesn't elaborate on what students learn in several classes at various years, so unless I have a specific need for play players to know about a spell or plant, we often gloss over those lessons. For my depiction of her, I wanted to shift away from the movie actress to a friendlier face like that of character actress Pert Kelton (Music Man).



Cuthbert Binns: His classes in the books are described as boring and dull, so we don't spend much time roleplaying out anything happening in his class...usually it something like "In the afternoon you move from class to class, in History of Magic Binns droned on about a conference of troll lawmakers and it was briefly made entertaining when an escaped turtle sporting a teapot for a shell came meandering into the room from a transfiguration class." I looked at Michael Palin for my depiction of Binns.

Xanthus Reynard: A business man in the publishing of magical books and tomes. He also collects rare books and, at times opens up his usually locked shop for used books and parchments in Hogsmeade called "Reynards Rare Tomes and Scrolls". The players have yet to meet this character (though he's been referenced...so if Adam, Nate, Comfort or Jesse are reading this, it's their first glimpse of him.

Ragnod: This goblin is hiding out on one of the small islands in the lake. The 1st year players saw a light flickering somewhere across the water when they crossed the lake in the boats with Hagrid on their first night at Hogwarts. After finding a magical way of summoning boats once used for the now-defunct house crew teams, the players discovered this crusty and salty diminutive goblin with a campsite working away on goblin-made craft-works...notably defying the Code of Wand use from 1691 by crafting & testing wands himself.


Death Eaters: As this is taking place the year after Voldemort & Harry's parents were killed, there are still Death Eaters on the loose. Sure, many of them have been sent to Azkaban, or are on trial, or in hiding from Aurors...but that's not to say that a few brazen ones couldn't don their hooded masks and cause some chaos. And a few have been brazen enough to test the school boundaries when not making a mess of Hogsmeade.

Oleg the Salamander: in the latest session, the players found it odd that Lukas had been sneaking around with fire, most recently in a lantern he'd tuck away between classes). They discovered that to replace his deceased toad Olaf, Lukas had pilfered a salamander used for third year Care of Magical creatures classes. Salamanders will only live as long as the fire they are born from continues to burn. So Lukas keeps his new pet alive by keeping the flame lit in the lantern.


Vidad Treepens: The wandmaker I made up back when I started making and selling wands is an anagram of my name "David Petersen". Vidad has yet to appear in the RPG, but I know that he has a shop in Hogsmeade, and with so much going on with Ragnod and his wandlore, I felt it would be good to have a true wandmaker available to the players. For the portrait, I just used my own face for reference, gave him a hat and apron like the ones Alistair wears in Legends of the Guard (my printmaking mouse proxy in Mouse Guard) and a bow tie that I often wear in honor of my grandfather.

!BONUS!

The 1st pencil version of Hagrid was my Art Drop Day piece for this year:

ArtDropDay 15 from David Petersen on Vimeo.

2015 Appearances:
Long Beach Comic Con: Sept. 12-13
Baltimore Comic Con Sept. 25-27
New York Comic Con Oct. 8-11
Art-Bubble Comics Festival: Copenhagen: Nov. 14-15