As part of my follow up after I complete large illustration assignment, I like to send a small handwritten note of appreciation. I think that small personal touches like this can go a long way to building a good relationship with clients.
Taking some characters from a comic project I am developing, I decided to use them in an illustration for my “Thank you” card. I wanted to make this illustration fun and colourful, while telling a bit of a story to make it interesting.
I kept the illustration fairly simple, and placed a white cloud shape at the bottom where I could write my short note of thanks.
I had the card printed on some bright white 10pt glossy card stock, so it would feel nice and sturdy and hold up to some handling. The cards were printed at 3.75″ x 9″ so they would fit into a regular sized letter envelope. I only had a small batch printed so I could trim them myself, giving me the option to trim them larger. This would allow me to leave more white area at the bottom in case I wanted to write a bigger note and not insert them into an envelope.
Since I left the cards fairly minimal (without my logo or contact information), I will usually send them either with one of my business cards, or with a short cover letter.
Having recently designed my latest promotional postcard, I thought I’d talk a little about my process for those who may be interested.
I make my postcards a little larger than the standard 4×6″, instead going with a 5×7″ size. I feel this has a better impact, and allows for more/larger images. Plus, the cost of mailing them is the same as the smaller size, and I feel the slightly increased cost for printing is well worth the end result.
For the front, I decided to use a few images from some upcoming books I’m working on. This is the first time I’ve used more than one image on the front, and I’m quite happy with the result. In the past when I’ve used only one image, I tend to regret my choice of image after I get them printed, so I figured using three images would triple my chances for liking the end result!
I always make sure to include my contact information on the front, and on the back I repeat my contact information, and list some of my published books. I actually got the idea to list my published works from a blog post made about her postcard creation process. Providing this extra information for Art Directors is such a great idea, I can’t believe I didn’t think to do this (although, this is only my second postcard, so I’m still learning what works best.) At the time of printing this postcard, I was unable to list some of my upcoming books as they are not published yet. I’m already looking forward to designing my next postcard so I can add them on.
On the back, I opted to show an arrangement of small thumbnails instead of one or two larger images. I wanted to capture as many different samples of my recent artwork as I could, while also making it fun and interesting to look at.
I left some space at the bottom for my mailing labels, and I strategically placed the thumbnail of the frog where the stamp will go. Hopefully this entices the recipients to peel off the stamp to see what is underneath!
Lately I’ve been using to handle the printing for my postcards. I find them to be well-priced, quick, and the quality is excellent.
My goal is to send out new promotional postcards 3-4 times per year. I send them to a selected group of Art Directors and Editors on my mailing list that I’ve built from researching on the internet, within the , and from the market surveys available to members.
I recently illustrated some characters that were used on a series of German language stickers for Teacher’s Discovery. Sure, the characters may be a bit stereotypical looking, but they were tons of fun! Big thanks to the wonderful Caryn Knight at Teacher’s Discovery for this great project.
It’s always a good idea to have a professional looking portrait of yourself for your website and marketing materials, and presenting yourself this way will help your clients view you as a professional. is the wonderfully talented local photographer who took my portraits. Pam is great at making you feel comfortable, which is important, and has a wonderful sense of lighting, which really makes all the difference in getting great shots. I am thrilled with the results, and I can’t recommend her enough. Thanks Pam!
Check out Pam’s for some really great family portraits as well.
Here’s a piece I was attempting to complete for last week’s , on the topic “sink”, but I didn’t get it finished in time. I’m hoping to make participating each week part of my regular routine, if time allows! I think I’ll make it my new year’s resolution!
Anyway, I like how this illustration turning out, and frogs are one of my favorite creatures to draw!
I’ve recently been featured in the illustrator showcase at , a website dedicated to celebrating children’s books, and the love and hard work that their creators put into making stories come alive! There are many talented children’s illustrators and authors featured on the site, so it’s well worth a look.
Zach recently commissioned me to illustrate a poster based on one of his brilliant SMBC strips (). I had a great time working on the facial expressions and getting creative with the different notes.
This poster is now available to for purchase at the . It’s a whopping 19×27″ and it looks really great at this large size – especially on your wall, that one, behind you.
Home stretch post! In the other three parts, I’ve covered the process for creating a strip from sketch, to pencils, to inking and scanning. Now I will go over my process for colouring a strip.
When I colour a strip, I lay out all of the flat colours first, picking and adjusting the colour scheme as I go. This process usually takes anywhere from 1-3 hours, depending on the complexity of the strip. Once I have all the colours flatted, I then start applying the shadows, highlights, miscellaneous details, etc. I do all of my colouring on the Wacom Cintiq 12WX. Below is an animated progression of the colouring process. This will give you a little bit of an idea how the colouring comes together:
This image may take a moment to load (1MB in size).
When I colour a strip, I like to set up my layers palette like this:
This is how I organize my layers in Photoshop
I keep all of the background colours on one layer, and all of the foreground colours (mainly the characters) on another layer. I also give the background and characters their own layers for shading. Separating them this way allows me to make adjustments easily. If, for example, I wanted to adjust the levels of the shadows on the characters, I could do so easily without affecting the colours on the characters or the background. Or, if I wanted to add some broad shadows or fades to the background, this is easily accomplished without affecting any of the foreground elements.
Separating the “shadow” layers for the foreground and background allows me to easily select the layer I want to shade. So, If I want to apply shading to the characters, I simply (Ctrl-click) on the “CLR-characters” layer to select it, basically creating a mask around the characters, then I move up to the shadow layer above it, and start shading. I set the blending mode on my shadow layers to “multiply”, and usually select a darker shade of the colour I will be shading on top of. For example, if I’m applying shadows to Enzo’s face, I would pick a darker brown or reddish tone, or maybe even a cool blue colour – depending on the lighting I’m trying to achieve, then set my brush opacity to anywhere between 15-30% depending on how strong I want the shadows. And, if I find that I need to make the shadows darker after I’m done – this is easily adjusted since they are on their own layer.
For the highlights, I set them up on a separate layer, and usually set the blending mode to “overlay”. The general layers in the screen shot above are my starting point, but I usually find myself adding extra layers as I go, mainly for certain highlights or other elements that I may want to adjust separatly later. For example, I used extra layers in this strip for the clouds, the fire, and some of the background texture.
In my blog post on inking and scanning, I went over the steps I take to prepare the ink lines so I am able to paint on them directly. The following is my process for painting the lines when I need to change their colour, etc. for atmospheric effect:
1. First, I select my “lines” layer, then I click on the little button in the layers palette to lock the transparent pixels
Here, I lock the transparent pixels on the lines layer
2. Now that the transparent pixels are locked, I choose the colour I want to paint the lines
Selecting the colour to paint the lines
3. Now I simply paint over the lines. I am free to colour without worrying about painting anything except the lines, because everything on the lines layer is lock, except the lines!
Painting the lines!
This technique is great for creating depth in your backgrounds, or background characters.
That’s the end of my 4-part series on creating a strip. I hope you enjoy it, and if there is anything you have a question about that I haven’t covered, I’d be more than happy to answer in the comments below.
