David Petersen's Blog

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Mouse Guard Coloring Book

Archaia & I have decided to publish a Mouse Guard coloring book! Fans have asked for it, and now one is on the way.

Mouse Guard Coloring Book:
-On Sale: October 2016
-Price: $14.99 US
-96 pages
Preorder on Amazon.com
Or through your LCS using order code JUN16 1233

For this week's blogpost, I will show the process of creating the cover, a piece I designed specifically for the coloring book.

My plan was to to something of a vertical image, with mice and architecture that would be flanked by a design pattern on the left and right (but more on that later). Because the details and little open spaces are what make one of these coloring books, I wanted the mice to have lots of specific clothes and accessories. And the architecture needed to be made of multiple building materials. Here are my pencils for the center section of the cover where on one sheet of copy paper I've drawn the architectural background of a round building with a beehive cupola, and on the other a musician mouse and a Guardmouse with some bees.

After scanning those drawings, I set about making a layout within a template for the cover's measurements (and keeping a space open for the title and text). I assembled the two drawings together, tinting each so that they were easier to 'read' visually as I worked out the design and later when inking on a light box. For the pattern designs up the side, I disassembled a stock stained glass window design, filled the gaps with honeycomb hexagons, and replaced the center floral motif with bees.

I printed out the above layout (I had to do that onto two sheets of legal paper because it was too large to fit on one sheet of anything my home printer can handle) and then taped that layout to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol.

I used Copic Multiliner SP pens (0.7, 0.5, 0.3 nibs) to ink in all the linework and details. I was so focussed on overdoing the details for the coloring book, I didn't think about how tight the linework was and if it would reduce well for publication, so I went back over several areas with white correction paint to open up some parts.

Below you can see several in-process images I posted on Twitter as I worked:

The last step, once the inking was complete was to get the title and byline typeset

Mouse Guard Coloring Book:

-On Sale: October 2016

-Price: $14.99 US

-96 pages

Preorder on Amazon.com

2016 Appearances:

Heroes Con: June 17-19

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

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

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:

2016 Appearances:

Heroes Con: June 17-19

Emerald City Comic Con: April 7-10
Motor City Comic Con: May 13-15

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Digital Sketchbook Cover Process

At the very end of last year, I released a 288 page Digital Sketchbook collection with eleven of my past sketchbooks and 30 pieces added in to the collection. (You can purchase MOUSE GUARD DIGITAL SKETCHBOOK COLLECTION 2004-2015 here: http://mouseguard.bigcartel.com). The collection needed a new cover, which can be seen to the left, and for today's blogpost I'll break down the process I used to create the artwork.

I began with the idea of doing a Mouse Guard St. George and the Dragon homage. Instead of the saint, it would be an armored Guardmouse, instead of his horse, a sparrow, and instead of the dragon, a snake. On copy paper, I drew the snake and bird, but had a false start with the mouse. So on another sheet of paper, I drew the armored mouse and his lance at approximately the right posture & scale.

I scanned these sheets in to Photoshop and composited them back together. The snake & bird drawing I tinted red, the mouse blue. This helps me keep track of design elements instead of seeing the drawing as a mass of black pencil lines. I framed the piece with the appropriate square border, and then added some 7 pointed stars and a holy halo around the mouse's head. The name Jorgen is a Danish version of George, which I thought was an interesting way to nod at the source inspiration and break up the star pattern a bit.

The above layout was then printed out on copy paper and taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 bristol. I ink on a light box or Huion light pad. With the light coming through, I can see the layout under the bristol as I ink. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens (0.7 & 0.3 nibs). To the right you can see the finished inks. These were fairly straight forward from my pencils...the only real amount of texture/tone I added was the lines on the floor.

After I finished the inks, I scanned them into Photoshop, cleaned up the scan, and started flatting the colors. This step of digital coloring is basically just coloring inside the lines and establishing the elements that are different colors. It's called flatting, because you aren't worried about rendering or effects or texture at this stage, you are just blocking out areas of flat color. At this stage I also added color holds, which are the areas where I painted the inkwork a color instead of black (the text, stars, & halo)

The final coloring was achieved by suing Photoshop tools with a textured brush. For adding the shadows I use the burn tool (at its lowest exposure) and for the highlights I use the dodge tool (also at its lowest exposure). The brush is a stock Photoshop brush. I think its called 'drybrush'. To the right is the finished product (sans-logo & title)

BONUS!
I liked this image enough that I've made it into my most recent tee shirt design. A two color silk screened image on Gildan Soft Style Heather Royal Blue tees. S, M, L, XL, 2X, & 3X.
They are available for purchase here: http://mouseguard.bigcartel.com

2016 Appearances:

Heroes Con: June 17-19