Painting 384 pages in watercolor? What a task!
Marshmallow & Jordan - Illustrating the novel
I recently found some old photos and videos from a couple of years ago while working on my book, Marshmallow and Jordan. At the time, I made several work-in-progress videos but only used some for the book launch promotion. I figure it would be fun to share some of the never-before-seen photos and videos here.
This photo was taken early on in production. I hang all concept and character design art on the wall to keep track of the quality and consistency of the illustrations.
As the project progresses, more finished arts from different chapters go on the wall.
I have the sketch of the page I am painting displayed on my laptop in front of my painting station to keep track of which part of the story I am working on. I did this because I jump around chapters and pages when I paint. I learned this technique when I worked as a traditional animator. When working on a big project, it's hard for an artist to stay perfectly consistent, even with the utmost care. Jumping from one scene to another helps to even out the slight human imperfection.
Marshmallow and Jordan is a book that is entirely traditionally painted with watercolors, which was a lot of work for a 380-page book. I adapted the traditional cell animation method to speed up the process and separated the foreground, characters, and background elements into different layers. Later on, I composited all the elements digitally in Photoshop. This way, I didn't have to repaint the same foreground or background many times for different panels and scenes.
Watercolor paintings require time to dry. To optimize my time, I usually work on 3 to 4 pages simultaneously. While waiting for one page to dry, I paint on another page. On average, I am able to finish 4 to 5 pages per day. Here is raw footage of me jumping from one painting to the next without any editing.
Not all pages can use the layer separation technique. In some large and complex scenes, I still have to paint the illustrations the old-school way without relying on computer compositing.
After trying it out on Marshmallow and Jordan, I start using layering methods for my newer picture book illustrations.
Painting with traditional watercolors was fun and all, but it was taking too much of my time. So, I decided to digitally paint my upcoming graphic novel while keeping the watercolor art style. I can't wait to share stories about it later this year!
Impressive stuff! Yes, that looks like a LOT of work and I'm not surprised you've found a compromise. Really good behind the scenes stuff, thanks for sharing it.
Cool! It must have taken a long time.