Momma Jay is Still Pondering

Gotta work on that bouquet of flowers!

I experimented today with Clip Studio Paint’s reference layers. Reference layers are useful for flatting images. For one thing, color can be applied to a layer beneath a reference layer using a bucket tool and the paint will conform to the line boundaries of the reference layer.

I also continued my search of a simple mono-width digital brush similar to a Rapidograph technical pen. Such a pen brush would have absolutely no features, with no dynamic pressure opacity or flow variables. I haven’t found such a unicorn brush yet — it seems that everyone wants to design fancy brushes, not simple brushes. I’ve checked the Clip Studio Assets site, which has many thousands of brushes, but haven’t found what I want. Perhaps if I could enter the term “mono-width pen” in Japanese I might find something. I’d better start learning some Kanji!

Hairlines Galore

My copy of The Jaybird That Jumped Down A Chimney arrived today. The first thing I checked for was hairlines, the white space on the margin that should not be there when an image covers the full page. When the paper is cut, there’s a margin of error of 1/16 inch. If an image doesn’t extend to the bleed line, you may see a white space, a hairline. I have hairlines on 16 pages. I’ll correct the errors and resubmit the book to Ingramspark.

I had my reasons for breaking the bleed line rule — some images had important content too close to the border, the cut line. I couldn’t extend the image to the bleed line without cutting off a character’s nose or wing. So, I gambled that the 1/16th margin of error would always be in my favor.

This is another learning moment in a project rich with learning moments: When publishing a book, go by the rules. One of those rules “Full page images must extend beyond the cut line all the way to the bleed line.”

In this image you can see a hairline that is really about 4mm (1/8 inch).