Wednesday 3 September 2008

Another Day In The Dark!


Gosh, these scans are taking a long time! I'm taking a break from it for a few minutes, to say a quick hello.


While I'm at it, I thought you might be interested, in light of my near miss with the Billy Goats Fluff project, to see some illustrations that I did, some time ago now, for a Billy Goats Gruff story. It was a very silly re-telling of the traditional tale, done in the style of a news story about the conflict. Part of it was even laid out like a newspaper, with fun headlines.

It wasn't published as a picture book, but as a section in an educational book, for use in schools. This is the TV presenter. I was rather pleased with this character. There is also the roving reporter on the scene, another troll, as you can see below.

You've probably noticed that these illustrations are rather different to my usual work. That's because I sometimes work in a very different style if the project is not a picture book. These illustrations have been done digitally, using a bit of software called Corel Painter. It allows you to 'paint' with more sophisticated brushes than in most other packages.

The line drawing is done in the real world though, with a mapping pen and black ink. It's then scanned into my computer and coloured.

Ah well, that's enough playing around. I'd better get myself a quick sandwich and get back to it. At least I can escape to the kitchen from the cave for a few minutes!

4 comments:

granny grimble said...

I loved this story, and often read it to you when you were small. You used to join in with all the sound effect of going over the bridge. I don't suppose I will get a chance to see this modern version? I've never tried Coral, but I like the look of the effects of it.

Lynne the Pencil said...

Corel Painter is wonderful, but possibly even more complex than Photoshop! By the way, Corel is the company that makes it - the important part of the name is the 'Painter' bit.

Unfortunately I don't think I ever got a copy of the goat story. It's a bit different when it's a section of an educational book: you generally only get sent your pages anyway.

Anonymous said...

This style is very different at a glance, because of the medium change, but somehow I think you can still tell that it's you.

Alice

Lynne the Pencil said...

It's interesting you should say that, because the pencil line drawings for both styles, before I begin to colour, do look very similar.

Drawing a strong outline for the digital work though, immediately turns the illustrations into something more cartoony.