Monday, April 07, 2008

Surprise Monday : Week 6 : Almost there!

It's all coming together now! I've got a meeting with Karen, the author, this Thursday, to show her all the roughs, so I'm busy just tying up all the loose ends. In the next few days I will be making a dummy to show Karen all the illos in true book form! It's very exciting! She got a dummy of the printing/binding sent through from the printer in Taiwan - so basically a blank book but the exact dimensions and quality of the final one. So it will be great to make my dummy in this. I'm just printing out the illos which I've layed out with the text and sticking them in. This isn't how I'll do it for the final one but just thought I'd give you an idea of what it looks like (I blurred out the text though so it's still a 'Surprise'! sorry for the bad photo)

This week I worked on the cover which didn't come easily at first. Sometimes a cover idea comes to the forefront during the book process, but this time it didn't. Karen and I bounced ideas off each other, sent sketches back and forth, but it wasn't happening. I found myself doing little thumbnail sketches everywhere I was, and finally came up with something that fit well. Of course I can't give it away, you'll have to wait for the surprise!

Last week Isabelle asked me 'When you illustrate one story, do you tend to make a cover from scratch or to choose a scene that sums up the story well?' - personally I like to create an illustration that is uniquely for the cover. It has to be something that represents the entire book, gives you a glimpse into the mystery of the book, and is engaging and eye-catching all at the same time! I think it would be hard to find an internal illustration that did all that. Especially for this book - seeing as there are four characters who never meet, it would be hard to have an internal illo on the cover. What do others do? would love to hear...

So that's it for the roughs pretty much! I may do another quick post before Thursday to show you how the dummy turns out. And soon I'll have something to show you in colour!! Have a great week all xx

6 comments:

Isabelle said...

Hi Kim,

Thanks again for your answers,glad you did a post about the cover again, as this is something I am pondering about at the moment. How exciting to see your work in book form, the dummy must be the moment where it begins to feel "real", both for you and the author.
How impatient are you about adding color?
Have a great week, cam't wait to see this book!

Tom Barrett said...

Exciting stuff. Looking forward to the color!

Alicia Padrón said...

Hi friend! :o)
Ohhh this is the goodie part! And it gets better when the color finally arrives. That is my favorite part. Is coming great Kim, how great that you have a dummy ready and just paste your images to actually see it better. That's great :o)

Alicia Padrón said...

Wanted to let you know, that it seems that I'm having problems with my email. Some mails I never get. Just in case you wrote me and i didn't answer is because i never got it. When you have time, I want to talk to you about our plan :o)

xo
Ali

Miscellaneous-Mum said...

Looking forward to Thursday ;)

lil kim said...

Thanks everyone! I like that I can count on comments from my regulars :-)

It's a very exciting time as you get to see a book come together before your eyes! Will keep you posted! xx

Alicia - will have a bit more time this weekend so will be in touch x