This Christmas, we had The Wish printed for family and friends. I still have to colour the artwork, but we couldn’t wait to see what it will look like when it’s finally finished. We wanted people to be able to flip the pages, read the story, see if it made sense and get some feedback.
Like kids opening presents on Christmas morning, we lunged into the box of books and immediately started shipping them to friends. We have received some excellent comments for improving the story. Since then, we have been cutting and pasting the changes suggested into the printed copy. It’s a patchwork, but it’s getting there.
UPDATE: The preview of The Wish books have sold out and we're excited to hear the comments and suggestions coming our way. Thanks to everyone who put in an order! We wish you all the best...
I had the hand coloured cover for The Wish scanned in and am not happy with the results.
On the left, is a photo I took of the cover. It's not great, but it's pretty close to the original.
On the right is the scan I got from the printer. It's really not great and looks nothing like the original as far as the colours go.
I don't know what made me think that a professional printing place would be able to scan in art and have it look like the original.
Silly me.
Anyway... just for fun here's what forty 12 x 18 pages, ready for colouring, look like laid out together.
I've had another "Chick In A Tree" to colour, have a "Gerhard Dreams" to work on and I still have the Bernie Wrightson piece simmering on the back burner of my mind but I thought that I'd have a page from The Wish printed out on 100lbs cover stock and colour that up.
This requires that I soak the paper and tape it to a sturdy board so the paper won't wrinkle when I use watercolour on it. I'll have to do this for every one of the 39 pages and covers. Hmmm... this is still going to take a while.
So much for having it ready for Christmas. I'm still waiting to hear from the printer on a quote for having this printed and bound.
I did a computer colour mock-up of the covers for The Wish.
Here's the front:
... and here's the illustration I created for the back cover, also coloured on the computer:
Now it's off to the printer to get a black and white preview copy. We plan on printing a limited number of these. If anyone is interested in ordering the preview version, I'll post information on pricing and shipping as soon as it's available.
Then it's time to get out the water colours and finish wishing!
I'm still plugging away at "The Wish". I've got the lettering pasted onto all of the pages. Here's an example:
I've never been much of a letterer. This is basically just my handwriting. I thought it has a certain child-like quality to it and It suits the story better than any of the computer fonts that I've tried.
I'm just finishing the inks on the cover now and then it'll be time to talk to the printer and see what my option are.
