Thursday, April 21, 2011

Share the Love

Hey! There's a SHARE THE LOVE contest at the Illustrated Section. If you like (or love ;) ) Ghosts of Pineville Book One...please mosey on over and let people know. You could win a super prize...and all the gratitude I have to offer!

Prepping the book for print.

Oh my gosh! I've finished Book 2! It is all penciled, inked, halftoned & lettered...even the fun, extra pages! All 86 pages. Now it is going through a second round of proofing. What I mean is after reading through for grammar and spelling mistakes I've handed it off to a trusted source for another couple reads. Believe me...IT IS SO EASY to miss those little things. When my first book went to print...I not only proofed it but gave the comic to 2 others. Still...after I had the tangible book in my hand...I found 2 more mistakes (which are now corrected). I'm trying to learn, be patient and diligent with the proofing stage. I'm just WAY excited to see the book in print!

This proofing process is working a little differently than in the past. Before I would print out each page to hand to whoever was helping me edit. It would take a lot of time...and a lot of paper. But now...we are truly living in the future! I laid out the book out in InDesign, created a PDF, (a process I would do anyway in this day of digital downloads) added the book to my iPad and gave that to my editors. Now, I highly trust the people who help me proof so I have no problem handing over my iPad for a few days. But you should always have trust in your proofers, right?

After a couple weeks of reading and re-reading the book I will be taking it to Ka-Blam to be printed. Ka-Blam is a Print On Demand service that allows us authors to print books without investing a ton of money in a ton of books. And they do a fabulous job! They've printed many jobs for me! The Ghosts of Pineville series is printed 6" x 9" and though this is considered a custom size for Ka-Blam...they have always printed perfectly.

Excited! 

So, while I patiently proof The Ghosts of Pineville - Book 2 I will start penciling pages on the mini comic I'm creating for the Art & Story Mini Comics Dump Truck! These will be my 2 major comics projects for 2011.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Gah! Celebrate! I've finished inking all my pages...

...now I have to halftone and letter this last batch of pages...and then proof the book...perhaps get a few friends to also proof the book...and...wow...it will be ready to print!!! 82 pages, yo!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Last minute revisions



I've managed to make excellent progress on the book. I now have up to page 79 penciled and inked. Now the story has always been 80 pages. The draft has told me this from the start. But as I crept closer and closer to the very last page it became clear it needed something....else.

It needed a better ending.

I've taken a few days to think about it. How could the story's theme and the character's growth be better summed up? Well, I think I've come up with it and I'm super pleased. It's such a perfect note (the one I've known, in the back of my mind, is the cornerstone of this entire series)...I can't believe I had to struggle so hard to see it clearly. But these are the things you learn along the way, i suppose.

The story for Book Two is now 2 pages longer than originally planned. 2 pages made the difference (to me). So, I'm excited to jump right in and start with what will be the last pages of the book! wow.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Front & Back Cover

Exciting, exciting! I only have 2 more pages to pencil before I'm finished with Book 2. I'll have to ink and halftone this last batch of 12 pages...but still...so close to finishing this story. I was motivated by the taste of achievement and decided to go ahead and design the back cover!

I wanted to have a wrapped design just like the first book...but had already designed the front as a separate piece. So, I continued the illustration and connected the two in Photoshop. Pretty pleased with how the design turned out!