12.6.09

Maria Goretti illustration

I am working on some illustrations for a book on Maria Goretti. This is the first of 5 illustrations I need to do. Pen and ink is a somewhat new medium for me. I would enjoy suggestions and tips (though no guarantee that I can implement them this project since I am on a time crunch) - but I would love to learn more so please feel free to comment. Also any tips on taking the image from the paper through photoshop and then to printing (in vector? maybe) would be very helpful. I use photoshop and illustrator a fair amount, but not for illustration purposes (at least till now). Thanks!

12 comments:

Kevin said...

Beautiful! Wonderful composition! Is this for a coloring book? (It should be. There is a lack of good catholic coloring books out there.) Who is the publisher?

One suggestion on the text in the bottom line: Eliminate the flair at the bottom of the P in Pappa and kern it in to the rest of the word. It does not flow as is.

love2learnmom said...

Very beautiful!!!

I was going to make the same comment about the "P". It looks like an "R" and I found it confusing at first.

Sophie said...

Beautiful illlustration. With a quick glance, the only thing I wonder about are the sunbeams-should they and the window have more definition (lines)in them?
I would love to see the book when it's finished.

Thom said...

I rather like the sunbeams as they are, myself. Beautiful work.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. Very solid design. I love the sunlight, I think it’s perfect as is. The only problem I see is that the father’s hand looks awkward.

I would scan these on a good quality scanner. at 1200 dpi @ 100% of print size. Go into levels or curves and increase the contrast, use unsharpen mask then save it as a bitmap tiff. you might want to save the text in a different tiff as grayscale... then put the two together in the page layout program... but it might be okay to leave it all as grayscale...I'm rambling now. Ask the printer which way would be better. -Theodore

Tommy said...

I love this. I like the sunbeams, too. I mean, they're really more than sunbeams, aren't they? This is like the primal source of my awareness of the love in and my love for crafted images, that 19th/20th century children's book illustrations like the colour fairy tale books of Andrew Lang's.
Thank you.

As for processing, it looks close to camera ready. Every point is black or white EXCEPT the fill of the text is gray and that could be a difficulty with simple printing. I think the image is great (really great) as bitmap and going grayscale for the text fill would be a bad idea. (well, not BAAAD) I think you should complete the outline of the letters in black and fill it with white.

This is coming from someone who is not as illustratively as capable as you are, but perhaps has some more commercial production/printing experience.

Unknown said...

Thanks so much for the comments and suggestions! I can certainly change the 'P' in papa to look more integrated into the text. Thanks for the suggestions for the text and printing - very helpful and I will work on it. I am not sure who the publisher is. I am working with people at Catholic Answers but I am not sure who the publisher is yet. I have gotten the comment many times that it looks like a coloring book and I am afraid it is just a normal small book for teens on the life of Maria Goretti. Should I add more darkness or something so that it does not look so much like a coloring book? Thanks again so much - very helpful!

Tommy said...

It does not look like a coloring book.

Anthony VanArsdale said...

This is a wonderful piece and I think the rays of light add a nice directional flow to her face, which is beautifully rendered. I feel your line work indicates this is not a coloring page because of the fine detail.

There are always things we wonder about changing... I think it looks great!

Kevin said...

If it had been a coloring page, I would have suggested eliminating some of the detail that Anthony mentioned, leaving more for the imagination of the young artist. Since it's not, leave it as is, it's a fne work. I'd like to see the others.

Ben Hatke said...

Yes, this is a truly fine illustration. I do agree with the comments about the father's hand, though it almost seems like a minor nitpick compared with the figure in the foreground. Especially if this is printed at a smaller size.

Herreid said...

This is really nice.