Artists and artwork processes: Abuja Story Making Workshop

Transcription

1 A reflection on having the artwork process as part of a manuscript development workshop At the end of the third day of the five day story-making workshop, all 20 participants handed in their semi-final manuscripts (written into A5 booklets, although almost all had already typed their manuscripts the reason for the transfer was to give them and illustrators a sense of the form and format of an actual printed African Storybook). Illustrators had these A5 booklets from which to work. The 20 story manuscripts were awarded points (1-5) for the extent the four reviewers throught the stories met the crieria identifed at the workshop by participants. The manuscripts with the five highest marks were selected to start the illustration process (that is, stories were not selected on how much they lent themselves to fast illustration). On Wednesday night, each artist chose one story to illustrate, and I discussed conceptualisation in detail with two of the artists. They all started with concept thumbnails and sketches that evening, working during the night, and the following morning I discussed the work in progress with the different artists. The rest of that day was used for finalising sketches and/or the various elements and characters of what would become composite pictures on computer. Most of the artists had started with their colour work by Friday morning, although one was still finalising detailed sketches. By midday, one artist had completed near-final colour work, three were at various stages of digital colouring, and one was starting digital colouring. For the closing ceremony of the workshop at about 2pm, we managed to present the ink line drawings for one title (Aku the sun maker), the near-final colour work for another title (Drought and the river of blessings), and the third was a combination of some colour work with mostly final line drawings (Magical rainbow river). Artists submitted the final colour files to me on the Monday/Tuesday after the workshop, using the weekend to complete the work. The workshop attracted a high calibre of illustrators, and they worked with skill, persistence and enthusiasm. An objective of five sets of pictures within the last two days of a five-day workshop is ambitious and requires experienced committed illlustrators who can work under pressure. It doesn t give enough time for proper commissioning (with an artwork brief), thorough feedback on the stages of illustration, or other discussion about the content. Three full days for the artwork process would be better, would involve more quality engagement, and less sleep deprivation on the part of the artists! (It s worth noting that even for the ten-hour Book Dash events the illustrators receive the unedited stories a week before the actual workshop, so that they can prepare with conceptualisation.) All of the artists are continuing with further illustration of stories from the workshop. The first five titles illustrated, and published within ten days of the workshop, were as follows: Aku the sun maker Drought and the river Pa Nase the spider How colours came Magical rainbow of blessings and the village women together in the sky river 1

2 Ken Okitikpi Pa Nase the Spider and the village women Creation of characters Characters on background My name is Kenneth Okitikpi. As an illustrator, I work with different tools. The illustration process for me starts with me doodling the main characters with pencil on a sheet of paper. When I am satisfied with the characters I have created, I dive into the pencil to paper sketches of each page. I draw my characters separate from my background mostly because I am into some 2D animation, and this helps ease my workflow, since most backgrounds may be repeated somewhere in the story and some other details. Any pencil and crisp A4 paper would do. Next, I scan the sketches into the computer. At this point, I use Adobe Illustrator CC 2017 to ink my strokes and lines. Here I work with lots of layers where I have to. This is where the work actually is for me. Then I transfer them to my Samsung tab for painting. I use layered apps for this just in case I have to make some changes later on. Finally, I get the illustrations back in my computer. Then I start my composition in Corel Draw X7. I compose each page, fix the appropriate backgrounds behind the characters and whatever I deem would be necessary for the illustration to be more meaningful. At the end of this, I export each page as PNG file. 2

3 Eugene Offei How colours came together in the sky Pencil sketches with detail Thumbnail sketches Hand Drawn ink scan to Computer process NB: I use so many different styles and techniques in illustrating but this is the process I used at the workshop: 1. Story to brief guide (break down of story to ideas or thoughts) 2. Thumbnail Sketches (for correct gestures of objects and characters) 3. Scale up to size (for right proportions of objects and characters in the scene) 4. Detailing of sketches (more visual information is added to the objects and characters) 5. Inking / Layering (complex scenes are broken down into layers when inking) (light box and tracing) 6. Scan to computer to colour (inked drawings are scanned into photoshop, coloured and saved into desired file format 3

4 Abayomi Idowu Aku the Sun Maker Illustration procedure (Sakiwa Awwalu) Conceptualisation, pencil sketch Inking and then Scanning for digital painting. For manual procedure; Pencil sketches first then Painting comes second and finally inking. Sakiwa Awwalu Drought and the River of Blessings Aku the Sun Maker, line work (pen) For the workshop, Idowu and Awwalu collaborated on the pictures for both titles, but each taking final responsibility for one title Drought and the River of Blessings colour process 4

5 Abayomi Idowu: MY WORK PROCESS After breaking down the story to pages, first thing I do is to sketch out my characters on paper with the aid of pencil after which I create a storyboard for each page of the storybook. I make rough sketches of my characters and activities to take place on each story page based on the art ideas I deduced from the manuscript received from the author. I scan them and submit to the author to look over and make it known to him not to be too critical of the details as they are still undeveloped at this stage also, give room for corrections if need be. After the accreditation/confirmation of my sketches. I take the scanned pages of the illustrations to computer for inking/line art. At this stage, I make all necessary detailing to the rough sketches of each page created initially. I make use of CLIP Studio PAINT software for inking/line art. Clip studio paint is a special software designed for illustration inking and line art. Software like Adobe photoshop, Adobe illustrator CorelDraw and Autodesk can also be used. I am a fan of clip studio paint because it is designated for inking and it has some super tools that give room for ink flow. I save my line art in PNG (Portable Network Graphics) and transfer them to Adobe photoshop for colouring. Adobe photoshop is a software designed for photo editing, photo manipulations, illustration, 3D digital paintings work. Some artists make use of other software like Autodesk, CorelDraw, Adobe illustrator, krita, Corel Painter, paint tool SAI and clip studio paint. The style of painting I use is called CELL PAINTING. Cell Painting is a method of breaking flat coloured illustrations or characters into grids. CANVAS SIZING. Most time, I work in high canvas quality with 300 dpi resolution. BLOCKING IN COLOURS I generally work from laying flat colours to detailing with my line art intact. I create layers for each object or related objects in each page and apply gradient patterns and textures where necessary to solidify the painting. WORKING UP TO DETAIL At this stage, I map out light and shade, that is, pen out the source of light and where shade falls by breaking my flat coloured images to cells with pen tool. Also, I give total attention to the focused objects in the page, treat them to details and give finishing touches. The finished works are saved in PNG (Portable Network Graphics) and JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group. 5

6 Edwin Irabor Magical rainbow river Thumbnail concept sketch Pencil sketches Inking scans of pencil sketches Inked line work, and final colour 6

7 EDWIN IRABOR'S ILLUSTRATION PROCESS I read the text to arrive at the best moment to capture for the illustration. Then I do a rough pencil thumbnail concept sketch, or several, from which I choose one to develop further. I do a bigger and cleaner pencil sketch which I then scan into the computer where it is inked. Inking on the computer is an additional process of cleaning up the sketch. I also apply colour to the illustration with the computer. I usually draw both character and background together as a whole in pencil before scanning it into the computer. Then I can choose to separate characters from the background on different layers in the computer. I work with layers quite a lot in the colouring process. It allows more room for adjustments while working and then during revisions and feedback. So after scanning the pencilled drawing into the computer, everything else is done on the computer. Photoshop is the choice software for colouring artwork. While it is possible to do everything (from initial rough concept sketching to final colouring) on the computer, I find it more intuitive and convenient to handle all sketches outside the computer. 7