Climbing Mt. Picture Book Inch by Inch

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I’m finally getting in a new groove: working at a part time job, house training an 11-week old puppy, working out one hour a day, meditating (only 10 minutes), working on my children’s picture book for 90 minutes in the evening, and the creating a post. Somehow there’s time for everything. And I forgot to include that we have an hour of face to face family time every night before we all go so sleep. It’s surprising what one can do when there’s little free time. You just do what you can.

Page 19 made one inch of progress today. I imported the file into Photoshop and inked the giant moai, then exported the file back to Clip Studio Paint EX for the coloring.

Coloring Children's Picture Book Using Flats

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When I looked at the flats I created yesterday, I found innumerable errors — white space where there should be solid color. When I used the selection tool to outline objects, I was simply sloppy. I’ll have to work on that. Cleaning up my errors took at least an hour. If I had taken more time when I created the flats, I would have been ahead of the game.

One tip to my future self: remember to change to the paint layer after you make a selection on the flats layer. It’s a good idea to lock the flats layer so that you don’t overwrite it with funky colors, like I did several times. Live and learn.

Not All Crocodiles Are Vegans

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As the kids make their escape with the help of a Caracara eagle, it becomes clear that not all crocodiles are harmless vegans, no matter what the crocodiles may be

The colors used in these images are not the final colors — they’re the “flat” colors. I tried something different when it came to painting this picture: I “flatted” the colors first. Flatting is a technique used in the comic book industry to make coloring easier for the “colorist”, the artist who has the job of painting the final colors. The job of the flatter is to select each object and give it a random, unique color. For example, the river is cyan, the near mountains are a shade of green, the mid-distance mountains are blue, and the distant mountains are purple. All of the crocodiles are the same unique shade of green, making it easy for the colorist to select all of the crocodiles at once when coloring them.

My flatting resources:

Page 27, the Conference, the Colors

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page_27_colors_blog.png, clip studio paint ex, children's picture book,confident reader

Today’s inch forward was to paint the conference image. Tommy Toucan is panicking while Carlos Crocodile is thinking about what he’ll be eating for lunch. From the look of his paunch, he’s been eating well. Betty Burro has a funny ear that looks like metal instead of fur. I have to work on that. That janky left ear consumed 80% of my time today and it’s still not right.

A Monarch Butterfly Has a Great Plan for Getting Over That Ugly Wall

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buddy_great_idea_blog.png, Character development, great idea, the wall, Clip Studio Paint Ex

Lately I’ve been moving along at a consistent clip. I’m more fluent with Clip Studio Paint and that means I don’t spend as much time scratching my head with a puzzled look on my face. Even with my extra activities (my part-time job), I have enough art time to complete an image every two or three days.

Today’s picture shows Buddy Butterfly announcing his brilliant plan for getting over the wall. He’s always boastful and full of himself. The question is, will his idea work? Or is he just being a blowhard? Only time will tell.

I flatted this image with the bucket fill tool. I used my custom brushes for all of the line work and painting. Eventually I’ll have a nice set of brushes that I’ll publish here. I still have to add some shadows and highlights, and some texture. And, the background needs work — I’ll put the wall behind Buddy. One of my goals for this book is to improve the backgrounds and make them more coherent and even exciting. I love to look at other illustrators’ awesome backgrounds, such as those painted by Blue Turtle.