Rusty Banana Forge

The Alamat ng Butiki project was done a long time ago, so this is just about collections. I had submitted the layered files (as requested) and was paid my first half of the money. But apparently Lampara is picky about their layered files. They wanted it in Photoshop format, not as TIFFs. After ALL that time I was asking for feedback, they don’t send me anything… and now this! Yeesh.

So I basically used up another 2 hours of my time to go there and submit Photoshop versions.

One thing I learned from this, publishers need to be educated just like any other design client. Now if they STILL ask for layers of my work, I’ll simply tell them that what’s flattened is flattened and that I really don’t have any more layers for them to play around with. I suppose some publishers think that just because it’s digital work that there are SUPPOSED to be layers. Well, no. Sorry.

The last of the story spreads! Any more time I spend on this project will be devoted solely to tightening up the artwork. But how tight do I really want it?

Spread 13 is the transformation spread. Something magical happens here. A man turns into a lizard (grovelling the floor in sorrow & repentance.) Honestly, I don’t get it! But I’m gonna MAKE you believe it’s possible!

The spread shows the sequential step-by-step morphing of our character into a lizard. When I was making the color studies, I realized that this transformation from man to lizard would be helped if I added a “tail” to the character’s initial design. Initially, the hunchback didn’t have a sash across his waist. But I added that later because it would specifically aid the visuals for the transformation.

I introduced a lot of green color into this spread and in a more graphic way. It’s a warm and welcome release from the previous spread. I think after a while of looking at all that blue in spread 12, the greens on this page will APPEAR to have a lot more orange in them. Of course it’ll also depend on the printing. Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun noodling with this spread.

Spread 14 closes the story in a unique way. The illustration is in the center, separated vertically by the page gutter.

The quality of modelling for the hunchback’s face surprised me. It turned out really well. That’s how tight I want my paintings to be. I want to resonate that quality across the book, but with deadlines approaching, I will only have time to focus on the cover and maybe a few others. Achieving such quality requires smaller brushes, sharper accents (dark & light), a lot of panning around the artwork, and an eye for where the detailing should be done.

Many artists feel the need to keep on developing and detailing a particular artwork. Each artist has a different threshold as to when he or she can say of their work, “It is done.”

Approaching the end of the story spreads for Alamat ng Butiki. I was given a month to do this (but I spent the first week of October waiting for feedback on my studies.) In fact, as I’ve been updating my blog about these pages, I’ve also been sending these spreads to Lampara publishing. Yet none of these emails have returned with comments on the work - which may mean my work is great and has no problems. But frankly, I’d like to hear what the publisher thinks. As the artist I want to know where I am headed with this book. Am I making it too dark? Does the publisher believe this kind of art will sell? I don’t want to be surprised when I’m done there are major revisions to be done.

Spread 11 requires a visual of the mother’s speaking heart. Not something you see everyday in local children’s books - well not in the literal sense of it anyway.

The heart’s speech balloon does not yet have the words. Lampara has both english and tagalog languages in their books. I hesitated to put these both into the word balloon just yet. I want to get the publisher’s idea for this. I did however give the speech balloons a veiny red and purple border.

The water in this illustration is the challenging aspect. The heart wasn’t much of problem, it isn’t fully revealed anyway. The water, however, is everywhere. There is rain, puddles of water, and damp folded clothes. There isn’t much time left for this project, (which makes me frustrated to have NO publisher feedback after all the updates I keep sending,) and so I didn’t pour too much of my time into the wet clothes, but I did pursue the wet hair, puddles, and rain.

The raining is supposed to continue into spread 12. But spread 12 presents several challenges that had to be addressed first:

First, there are two plot points that need to be addressed. One is that Marina is supposed to faint from the sight of the heart, and two the hunchback is chased until struck by lightning. I could have applied a small vignette to illustrate Marina fainting and then devote the other half of the spread for the lightning strike - or vice versa. This would have been similar to spreads 08 and 09. However, I felt that this spread needed to strike the reader in some way that was different from all other spreads.

Second challenge, the perspective - especially since both people, buildings, and sky are involved. I haven’t gotten it quite finished yet.

Third, the high contrast and the almost monochromatic pallette due to the high intensity of light. Pushing the contrast to a point where characters start appearing graphic or overly simplified was something I had to be careful about as it did not match the rest of the book (which then again could be what strikes the reader the most about this spread!!!)
The lightning and the hunchback’s silhouette put together are already quite arresting. It’s a white mark that cuts right into the space for text. I could’ve gone for a vertical layout, but I felt the horizontal orientation would best tell the chase prior to the hunchback being given the shock of his life.

By the way, no Photoshop LEVELS or CURVES adjustments have yet been made to this spread’s illustration. I also did NOT use Hue/Saturation to give this spread (or any other spread for that matter) are overall color glaze. Just painting techniques with the trusty Wacom graphic tablet and Photoshop brushes..

Did you notice the lizard-like shadow form just below the huncback?

Darker and darker. Our huncback, locked in prison descends into depression. Marina has given him her ultimatum - his mother’s heart in exchange for her love. (Of course she’s just pissed - you don’t really expect Marina to hook up with the hunchback, do you?)

Spread 09 shows two story points yet again. The biggest challenge here was the light source streaming through the cell window. The visible light rays are caused by both dust and the rain breaking into the cell. It’s not convincing yet, but it isn’t done. As it is, all the images from Alamat ng Butiki posted so far are not final. In a later update to this spread I added more ambient light in the cell - thereby giving it a stronger sense of space. I also adjusted the perspective of the window to make it logical to show the corners of the cell.

Across the illustration of the cell is a smaller one describing how the hunchback is able to escape. In the thumbnails, this illustration is simply boxed in like a comic book panel. But in this update I added a pacing device by having the hunchback tiptoe out of the panel. Interestingly, it serves as a bit of comic relief. KIDS are gonna be reading this, comic relief is necessary!!
For now the images I’ve been posting from Alamat ng Butiki offer the foundation by which the final illustration will be built. Any storytelling devices that enter my mind are applied - something the digital medium allows quite easily. The goal is that we learn these lessons and techniques as we work so that we can apply them at the thumbnail stage. But if you force yourself to follow your approved studies, you will shun applying ideas that come to you while you work!

Spread 10 shows two plot points. The hunchback heads home to embrace mother, and the hunchback guts her heart out. You don’t see the latter happening, it’s R-rated! But the knife in the chopping board gives you an idea. Literally it shows a reflection of the dastardly deed, figuratively it shows a moment frozen in time that we aren’t supposed to have the kiddies see. Perhaps the most gruesome spread, so you can see the dripping purple guck around the top.

Now I’m not sure if it’s just my paranoia, but some people may get the impression that there’s something incestuous going on in the first illustration. After all there is a big heart form, and the colors are all steamy. I wanted to bring in the idea that man’s love can been perverted and twisted - the underlying premise in this story (aside from the obvious point that a lizard has to be result of all this.). Love for mother been twisted to hate, a love that murders, romantic love for a woman who belongs to someone else. No incest intended.

The study for this controversial illustration included a headless chicken along with the knife. According to the story ,the mother was about to cook her son’s favorite meal before she had her life snuffed out. I thought the headless hen and a knife stuck in it would be the perfect metaphor for the mother’s murder. (Won’t be the same if it were a fish.) But it didn’t sit well with Lampara, the publisher. Oh well, at least I don’t have to illustrate dead chicken.

Probably the most challenging concern in spread 10 is the fabric. Upon researching the fashion of the day, I decided to add a little more textural interest to the mother;s clothes and give it a more Filipino look as well.

First the mother’s gown was painted. Then the fabrics she wore on top of that gown were placed on separate layers set to Normal. I used a textured brush to paint down the semi-transparent shawl that she wears around her neck and used a mask to tailor how the lights stikes it. Additional painting was required to render the color accurately and to place the patterns.

The color pallette for these spreads is slowly turning cold - making you flip the pages hoping for a warm ending!

Ah horror! I like painting horror as much as I like painting cute stuff. Spread 07 is a fairly tame horror scene. All in all in got me thinking just how scary this children’s book is going to be! Every time some poor child looks at a butiki (house lizard) they are going to recall these images for the rest of their lives!

Well at least the hunchback isn’t a vampire. Here he looks like an ogre - or Mr. Hyde with a wicked grin. The victim here is the same gentleman from spread 06. Lucky enough to get the prettiest girl in town, but unlucky to be only around for two spreads. Because this spread is the last you’ll see him. I should probably fix his eyes to face our left… as he is already holding his arm up in alarm.

One of the key concerns for this illustration was once again bringing in warm colors from a warm light source, thereby balancing the image as to prevent it from being too cold or too monochromatic. Torchlight, lamp light, fire light - I didn’t find it hard to include them here. Moonlight added colder lights which craft the form of the church, the town, and both victim and felon.

I like how the cold lights fall on our hunchback. It makes him look real sinister. Unfortunately it draws attention to his poorly illustrated grip on the stone block he’s about to bring down on the distinguished gentleman. Will have to fix that grip.

One thing worth noting is the fallen hand illustration. This wasn’t in the initial study. I smartened up after reading Illustrating Children’s Books : Creating Pictures For Publication by Martin Salisbury. Bought it just recently and decided to apply a few pointers from the book on improving the pacing. It was 1193 pesos when I bought it. I highly recommend the book.

Ok. Two plot points occur within this spread, and both needed to be illustrated.

First, the hunchback is found out. That’s the easy one.
Second, Marina confronts our murderer and tells him to go yank the heart out of his mom. “If you love me, gut it out,” that sort of thing. Seriously, she must have been in trauma to say something like that.

The second one will still need a lot of work There’s a downward camera angle that required some awareness. There’s a afternoon light source cast through the prison bars. There are fabric patterns. And then that’s supposed be our pretty 20-something Marina crying and shouting at the same time (generally it’s so NOT a pretty sight that the lady ends up looking like someone else.)

My attempt at creating an afternoon in a tropical prison resulted in a prison from steamy Mexico. To balance the spread I decided a cool pallette for the smaller illustration. I will still need to find ways to cool down the bigger illustration to make it less Mexico..

These two spreads weren’t trouble at all. They are nearly done save for details on fabrics and hands.

A lot of plot points occur per spread in Alamat ng Butiki - in later spreads, especially. I find myself requiring small vignettes to tell the story in more detail.

Spread 05 has the hunchback reminiscing about his mother - which is a shaky plot plant but it’s as good as it gets seeing that we only have a total of 14 spreads in which to have both the plant and payoff.

The mother’s facial features were a joy to paint. She’s the only old person in the book. I should scrounge up some references for her attire, but then I don’t feel I have much time left - maybe after I put some solid foundation on the other spreads.

The intention for both these spreads is to introduce a feeling of comfort and a moment’s peace in the storytelling. So more green and a pleasant bright blue went into pallette.

I particularly like how spread 06 turned out. The facial modelling, the overall complementary color scheme, and a bit of comedy relief with the hunchback’s nutty anime-ish explosion of affection, all were done quite well. The colors are rich due no small part to the complementary scheme and triad color going on.

One of the techniques I’ve been applying as I’ve gone through these spreads is using a brush set to overlay to achieve radiosity. I understand radiosity to be the halo created on a surface as a light strikes it. Turn on a flashlight and aim it on the floor, the aura of color around the light in that halo. So I take the overlay brush, set it to the color I feel the halo should be, and then apply it across the path of this halo.I don’t exactly know the science of it all, but make no mistake - it does wonders.

Spread 03 is one of the more difficult spreads to do. Besides being one with full body shots of the characters, and architectural detailing (that isn’t complete) - the values on the spread were difficult to control. At one end I was trying to get it to be readable, on the other end I wanted the lighting to be logical. I still have to bring out the characters hands some more as they disappear into the sky in the background. This spread is going to take very very long to finalize.

The initial study shows a slightly closer view of the characters but I decided to zoom out the camera a little more because this book is in danger of having too many closeups and midshots - which can get boring. And of course, we got to show some architecture!

Spread 04 is a cold one! The hunchback reinforces his resolve to pursue Marina. Would you like to root for him? I wouldn’t.. For this spread I’ve been feeling this urge to reduce the size of the hunchback. He looks a bit too big for the place and he evens makes the bell look small.

It’s one of my notions (and perhaps it is unfounded) that child readers would be more attuned to the characters in an illustration. I don’t know if they can appreciate the environment/architecture playing a bigger role than the characters. I guess it really depends on whether the story demands that the environment take on more importance than a character. Maybe it’s just me? I like to detail the backgrounds in a children’s book to give everyone a sense of place.

Besides the size of hunchback being an issue in this one, the color too may be a challenge. It is dangerously monochromatic. I don’t know of any monochromatic children’s book spreads. My reason for coloring it that way is that I couldn’t figure in a warm light source at the time. Maybe a candle somewhere in front of the hunchback can warm things up a bit. Perhaps a visual effect of the sound coming from the bell or of the obsession coming from the man’s soul can liven things up.

I’m sure with a few references of bell tower interiors, I can get this to look more convincing.

Around 5 hours of work went into each of these spreads. Still not done but composition and colors are are on solid foundation. I’ll be adding more contrast and realism to spread 02 though. And in the end I’d still have to see the proofs to tell whether or not these will print as well as they look onscreen.

My work has oftentimes lacked deep blacks. On Photoshop that means the histogram never has any data on the value of pure black. Trouble is, there is that danger that the colors that look like black aren’t even near black. I’ve read to “never use pure black.” This is to my experience a very Western concept in painting, and it does throw a damper in achieving richer contrast. And besides, this doesn’t mean you can’t mix pure black in Photoshop on a digital canvas ala prima. With pen pressure controls and a lower opacity, the end result need not be pure black even you’ve got pure black as your foreground color.

I have made conscious efforts to spike up the saturation and bright accents for the first few spreads, but now I also made sure I pushed “dark” accents. I have typically understood accents to mean bright spots in an artwork, but the concept of a dark accent has been growing on me for some time now, and I think they are just as important (in my style anyway.)

Pushing the blacks in spread 01 allowed for a more striking sensation of form to be achieved. I’m also hoping that other people besides myself will also appreciate the sensation from Marina’s lovely looking face. I hope it doesn’t come across as too Chinese - I am guilty for opting for the oriental sort of beauty .

Spread 02’s description indicates that the hunchback oogles Marina from the bell tower. But in Tagalog it isn’t quite clear (to me and my poor Tagalog anyway) whether the bell tower is separate or within the dome of the church building itself. I decided it would be simpler if the bell tower was a separate structure. Nothing wrong with that from an architectural standpoint.

Friend Anson Yu mentioned that friars have their tonsure shaven (imagine Friar Tuck from Robin Hood.) So besides changing the color of the priest’s habit, I also gave the priest a shave. I needed to make the priest old-looking anyway lest people think he may have the hots for his flock.

And speaking of hots, I did imagine one possible illustration for this spread showing a closeup of Marina’s lips parting to receive the communion bread. I figured I’d run out of space showing such a steamy and suggestive illustration! For shame. Gotta stick to the story, so I just had our lewd hunchback taking a long lusty look - with matching pinky colors to boot (which probably won’t print very well.)

One of the techniques I’m starting to appreciate is the vertical flip. Under Photoshop CS2 that’s the IMAGE>ROTATE CANVAS>FLIP VERTICAL
. Sure, it flips the whole picture upside down. Sure, you can’t make sense of it. Most artists know that flipping an artwork horizontally can help you tell if there’s something wrong and that’s about all most do. Useful for checking faces and composition. Flipping it vertical certainly didn’t strike me as worth anything. But now from experience I’ve begun to appreciate the upside down artwork as a means of detecting balance or imbalances. You can detect if colors are working well together and if values hold themselves together much like the Yin&Yang do:

. Any way you look at it, if it balances - it balances.