FINAL SHORT STORY

 Here is my final short story layout!

Professor Mata really enjoyed my visual style and was glad I was able to figure out how I want to illustrate. She had only two comments and that was she wanted me to adjust the position of where my name is in relation to the title and work on the background of the Dancing Dogs. I made those adjustments and updated the InDesign file I was finished.

Final Size: 7 x 7" with a 1/4" bleed CMYK 

Extra Page

Back and Cover Pages

Copywrite and Title Page

End Pages

While I'm not sure if I will print this project out in a material form, I am so proud of myself for working through this project. I had a rough start at first as I struggled with trying to find a visual style, but I worked through each scene and found a way to illustrate. Even though my short story doesn't have a set narrative, I chose more of a visual list so I had more freedom to explore how I want to illustrate. 

This class and more specifically this project really opened up my eyes to illustration and I can't wait to continue to explore what I can create 💛😊

WEEK SIXTEEN - A

Here is what I have so far.

I brought the spreads I created in Adobe Fresco into Adobe InDesign and made sure everything had a 1/4" bleed around all sides. I had to make some minor adjustments to the layouts of the different spreads as some of the elements and text was too close to the edge. I decided not to add page numbers because there isn't much of a narrative to the book so nothing needs to be in a particular order. 

Professor Mata is working on giving us all feedback so I'm going to wait to see what she says then make adjustments from there.

Extra Page

Back and Cover Pages

Copywrite and Title Page

End Pages

WEEK FIFTEEN - B

 Thankfully, I made the realization on Tuesday night that each spread counts as two pages... so I have completed 12 pages. I originally was only drawing one scene per page but moved to a spread to have more room to draw yet still thought I had to 10 full spreads. So on Tuesday, I had finished all of my spreads and I spent Wednesday and Thursday working on the cover page and end pages.

Here is what I submitted for my 90% progress:

Cover and Endpages

Spreads (in order)

I'm going to continue adjusting some of the illustrations as well as add the page numbers. I've been drawing all of these out in Adobe Fresco on my iPad, but I'm going to do the page numbers on the computer so I can try and keep them all in the same spot.

WEEK FIFTEEN - A

It was a slow start at the beginning of the break, but I am very grateful for Professor Mata's advice as her input helped me find a direction. After sending her my three styles I struggled with she gave me links to some other styles and approaches to drawing digitally.

Here is the response and email she sent me:

I think some of the problems you are having is that you are not building colors. Think of how you would use pastels you don’t just use one color to make brown you build up color. This will help create texture within your illustrations. Conte is a great way to work, it works well with textured paper or colored paper. I believe there is a way to make your paper more course in procreate. Otherwise, your concepts and compositions are working well. 

Here are some illustrators to look at.

https://www.printmesomecolor.com/2020/05/28/painting-in-procreate-how-to-paint-a-landscape/

 

https://www.instagram.com/kokooma_/

She uses textures in a wonderful way.

 

This link shows different styles

https://uxdesign.cc/10-inspiring-illustration-styles-from-the-best-illustrators-of-2020-89b42f08ba81

The first link on the tutorial of how to paint in Procreate is what helped me the most. I began to understand more how to build the colors and add texture. 

I started again with the ice cream igloo, but this time I focused on the layering of colors (I also decided to do spreads so I had more room). 

While I think things were getting better, I still was not happy with the end result. I still wasn't seeing the texture and the contrast was not there either. So I worked back into the piece again really focusing on the layering of color to create depth (I also used a pastel tool too).

I now felt confident in my direction and so throughout the break, I continued to work on completing more spreads while keeping my style the same. 

Here are the ones I have completed so far:

My goal is by Thursday to have all of the spreads complete and then work on the covers, end pages, and title page (I'm thinking of a night sky cloud pattern to reinforce the dream, night-time feeling).

THANKSGIVING BREAK

For Week Fourteen we are off for Thanksgiving. I am going to continue to work on my short story and I will update my blog on December 1st with what I have completed. 

THREE REFINED PAGES

I completed my three refined pages, but I'm struggling with building a scene and working out a texture.

While I think I did a better job of creating a foreground and background, I felt I was missing the texture with the igloo. So, I moved to Adobe Fresco and tried a Conte crayon which worked well. I also wanted to try using a watercolor brush and using a pen for detail, but I really struggled with adding the detail.

I reached out to Professor Mata for help because I’m not sure which the direction to go in. 

WEEK THIRTEEN - B

I started by finishing up what I was working on through Procreate. 

I made the entire scene brown And then used a lighter shade in the soft yellow for some highlights. I kept a majority are the same brown to relate to the color but this way it wasn’t just white for everything else. While I think the colors and Setting are effective, I feel like I’m missing texture. Any other examples I showed in the previous week, the books had layers in color, patterns, material texture. Well the brush I chose on Procreate has some dryness to it, it’s not as much as I was hoping. 

I researched, trying to find other brushes that have some texture on Procreate but none of them that I could find for free.

 I remember learning about Adobe fresco on the Adobe Max event so I download the app and tried with that. There was able to find and download a bunch of brushes and I played around for a while trying to find different textures. While this isn’t a finished piece I took a screenshot just to compare the texture from pastel to the dry ink from Procreate.

I reached out to Professor Mata And she said it’s OK that for my three developed pages/spreadsand she said it’s OK that for my three developed pages/spreads I can do three different scenes in three different styles so I can figure out what I want to do for the entire story.