And here it is! Congratulations to Nelly with her successful Pozible campaign which exceeded its target and helped usher in Some Girls, beautifully printed and bound by Anthony at The Print Department. And beautiful design work by Elena Fombertaux.
Officially launching in March 2018 but if you want to get in early head over here!
And yes, Some Boys has already started up so stayed tuned!
Some Girls
The Wizard of Oz moment
The process goes from all that greyscale (think Kansas), through wire framing (the tornado) and into the glorious world of colour (Oz!). This is where I met a new challenge. In other books the characters, and to an extent, the background, repeat from page to page so the colours to be used are determined at the outset. My 49 girls, one dad, two dogs and load of toys each needed its own colour scheme – but they all needed to belong together to keep the book cohesive. And skin colours were important too.
I have had a few false starts, coming back to rework colours as later pages began to require different colours, but I have the palette now.
And now this is an up-to-date blog because the colour roughs have been approved and I am currently working on the details. A fun part as the images come to life.
The long march
Approval was quick and it was straight into Illustrator to construct the “wire frames”* for 49 girls, one dad, two dogs and a load of toys. Honestly, mind numbing and very ugly. Also quite intense making sure that all the layers were all in the right order. The less said the better! (But this is what it looks like!)
* Strictly speaking it's not wire frame, but just looks like the unadorned lines that ai produces in that mode.
Another dummy book or A Day In My Life
This time I printed a full size concertina dummy book. It took me a WHOLE day to print and stick it all together (along with a lot of double-sided tape). Hang the cost, next time I’m going to Officeworks. But a better approach than a flat on-screen PDF for Nelly to look at. You need to TURN the pages!
NB> That terrible dummy type is mine, not Elena's!
Its black and white
More scans, another visit to Photoshop, tone blocked in and Elena’s dummy type placed.
Pulling it all together
Once we settled on the ideas it was time to start working on the final images. This meant getting them working stylistically as a whole (over the months of doing the storyboards and occasional full size image the way I drew things kept changing).
I still love working with grey lead pencils, ( I've used a Steadler Mars for over thirty years and haven’t made the change to working directly onto the computer for my roughs - too constraining). So, many 2B leads, rubbers and sheets of Bank paper later, I had 49 girls, one dad, two dogs and a load of toys in line work form ready to go.
A good designer; don't leave home without one
Looking at my type I knew it was time to bring in someone who REALLY knew what they were doing. Time to introduce Elena Fombertaux to Nelly. The difference once she was on board was extraordinary for me – a shot in the arm. My type and drawings argued, Elena created font combinations (some handmade) that sat with the pictures, pushed-and-pulled layouts till they all worked together and introduced a more organic and flexible background shape. And in a funny circle that has kept going, she worked with my sample colours to produce a colour palette which I now draw on for all the colours in the final images.
LESSON: If you are thinking of self-publishing have an awesome designer as a part of the package!
A change of heart with a change of size
“OMG, she wants to go square now.” I experienced one of those sinking moments when Nelly decided, after doing more research, that a square format would be better. And she wanted a bigger size. Bigger is okay, just scale it up in Photoshop. But re-laying out every page? After some tears I got back into Photoshop and began. And guess what? The images were so much BETTER SUITED to a square page. So I didn’t quit after all! (And here is my finished sample page.)
How many?
Most books will have a handful of main characters, maybe a few more on the side, and a number of backgrounds that might or might not repeat. Some Girls involves 49 different girls, each with her own personality, own attitude, own colours and own story. Also, one dad, two dogs and a load of toys to be drawn. Ahhhhhh!
Making a Roadmap
We decided to finish an internal page and the cover so that Nelly could start promoting the book (reminder– here on Pozible and here at Some Kids Books). Working in Photoshop with all those lovely Kyle T Webster brushes made beautiful images but I realised that with a pressing deadline I wasn’t going to have time, so back to Illustrator, where I am faster and faff less. I felt much was lost and have never been sure of the gains, other than time.
Update: getting the hang of some Illustrator brushes has helped a lot. But gee, gotta watch for that spinning wheel of death. Thank you RetroSupply Co for such great brushes and the wheel concept.
Working with a comedian
Nelly’s ideas were often funny. I suppose that would seem obvious, but the book is, in many ways, pretty serious and just because someone can say funny things doesn’t mean that they can see funny things. But she does! So Nelly is the driver for a lot of the visual gags in the book (for example strong hair (above), and the girl eating the frog… yup... was never gonna come up with that one!).
Getting the flow - dummy books
I scanned in the storyboards then fiddled around in Photoshop till each page was “working” in a very rough way. Then I made my first (of many) little dummy book by printing onto A4 paper (12 book pages per sheet), cutting, sticking and using a concertina fold. Turning the “pages”, despite being so tiny, reveals the connections between the images as you move through the book. Problems become evident as do pages that work. A good point to stop and discuss the ideas with Nelly.
From beginning to end, then back again
Being so small and quick made it easy to turn over many versions, each successive one building on the last.
Where to start?
Nelly called me up one day and said ”I’ve written a book and I want you to illustrate it”. Maybe not such a surprise in one way as I have been doing design jobs for her for many years. But really a BIG SURPRISE because I didn’t know she wrote books for kids!
THE STORYBOARD (oh so important)
Where did I start? For my last book I didn’t use the usual process and missing some of those early steps really got me into trouble. So this time I started at the start with the storyboards, made up of lots and LOTS of little thumbnail drawings (they really are very little). I can work very fast this way, which is good for grabbing the essence of the idea. No fussing about proportions, or anatomy, or colour, or style, just capturing that moment that responds to the text. It might be the right gesture, the right movement, the right expression. Quick and spontaneous.
Some Girls
Okay, so I have been pretty lax in keeping my blog up to date. And now the book I have been working on for many months has started to make its way out there and I haven’t told you ANYTHING, or shown you anything, about it.
So, quick catch up.
Some Girls
Some Girls has been written by Nelly Thomas, comedian, author, tour de force. And mother of a little girl whose peers have given her a very hard time because of the way she chooses to dress and cut her hair and the toys she likes. Nelly’s response was to write and self-publish Some Girls (and Some Boys, which is also under way), a book addressing the lack of freedom we have to represent ourselves as we choose. What a powerful, and timely, statement to be a part of. And because she is a comedian she has written a book that is funny and a joy to read. Hey, and a joy to draw!
The beautiful design work is being done by Elena Fombertaux, a talented graphic designer I met when I studied design and typography at Old School New School a few years ago.
Nelly is mid-way through her Pozible campaign to fund this book – go have a look, pledge, pass it on. Make a difference. And I’m going post a retrospective look at the process this book has been going through. And pledge to keep this blog a little more up to date!
PS. You can find out more about the story behind the books at Some Kids Books.