Page Eight Finished Illustration

Finished page eight tonight.  This illustration was fairly easy to render, except for the fox because of his small size and amount of detail.  Overall it was quite fun to paint, probably one of the more detailed pages out of the bunch.  This illustration really represents a D&D party - Barbarian (tiger), Thief (fox), Knight/ Fighter (rabbit aka Maximus) and Wizard (Raccoon).  I am aware that I am missing a cleric, I considered adding a fifth party member but it felt too cramped on the page.  I will start on page nine this week after I finish lesson plans.  Still moving at a steady pace, I am learning more and more with each illustration I create.

Page Seven Finished Illustration

I finished page seven tonight.  Fairly simple composition but it still took a fair amount of time to paint mostly because of the amount of detail in the treasure.  Not much prismacolor in this one, only a little bit of texture in the fur.  There is quite a lot of opaques in the foreground, especially on the coins.  I had no issues with the rabbit after scanning the illustration but the yellows in the gold were way too dark and too saturated.  I had to shift it to yellow-orange to match my original better.  Scanning artwork is always a little bit of a hassle because I almost always have to create a digital version with correction layers that better match the colors in my original.

Page Six Finished Illustration

I finished page six tonight.  I seem to be finishing these at a pace of one illustration every week and a half or so.  This probably means I won't have all of my illustrations done until sometime next spring.  Good news is that I am now getting a rhythm going and that usually means I will be able to speed up some.  This painting was fun and I am pleased with the results.  The main challenge as far as design was concerned was to make sure the bears pop off the trees and the rabbit pop off the bears.  There are two levels of grey behind the rabbit.

Page Five Finished Illustration

I finished the illustration for page five tonight.  This one was a lot easier for me to think about in terms of design and color theory.  Initially I thought the brick background might be too busy but I fixed that issue by lightening the line art.  Not a whole lot of opaque paint on this one except for fur texture.  I start creating lesson plans for art classes this week.  I still plan on finishing at least one painting a week.  Saturday and Sundays will be used to create lesson plans.  We will see how things go as the school year progresses.

Page Four Finished Illustration

Here is the finished illustration for page four.  This one had a much more challenging composition since the background was not just flat, open space.  It was important to always be wary when painting the background around the rabbit and never go too dark.  I always paint these illustrations background to foreground.  As I was painting the background, I initially thought I went too dark.  It was not until I started painting with payne's grey on the rabbit that I realized that light fluffy colors cannot compete with the really dark pigments.  Overall it went well, I only wished I painted this a little faster.  So far it seems that one week is the time I need to be satisfied with a finished painting.  I would like to narrow that done to four or five days.  I start page five tomorrow!

Page Three Finished Illustration

Here is the finished illustration for page three.  I used less prismacolor this time and a lot more opaque paints particularly on the water's surface.  I also glazed some light washes on top of the opaques to make it look like it is reflecting the color of the sky.  This painting was an interesting challenge, especially thinking about color theory.  Most of the colors are very neutral except for the blue green in the rabbit's eye.  A lot of the colors had to be created by mixing pigments.  In order to get the right mixture I had to jump across the color wheel and mix colors together since certain pure pigments were not available to me ( phthalo green and green gold ).  It worked out fairly well and I am pleased with the results.  Onto page four!

Page Two Finished Illustration

Here is the finished illustration for page two.  I painted this on vellum bristol using golden fluid acrylics and I did a little bit of texture using prismacolor.  I also had to do some minor digital edits to make the colors match my original as close as possible.  Overall it turned out well.  This painting took me a little over three days to complete.  At this rate I hope to have most if not all the pages painted by the end of December.  I do have to teach classes this fall and lesson plans will certainly occupy most of my time.  It will be a challenge to balance my time between creating quality lesson plans for my classes as well as painting the illustrations for my book. 

The good news is that I do not start teaching until after labor day so I have a little over a month to work on my book.  We shall see how many pages I manage to complete.  Onto page three!  FYI:  Just in case you are wondering where page one is, I am painting these in the order I drew them.  Page two was originally page one.