Ed Benedict 1912-2006 RIP

We harldy knew yee...

And the final image taken from the pdf.

I want to say that even if visually something is 'finished' that there are still a lot of checks and edits to be done on the technical side to make sure the image will print exactly as I want it to.

Output previews and pre-flights in Acrobat, final proofs printed and checked, making sure that there are only the two color channels etc.

Lots to do, but not today. Later folks...

One more check in Indesign to see how the whole thing is hanging together.

I'm going to export a pdf to see how I like it.

Feeling good, almost finished.

Okay, back to work.

I'm just adding a dashed line to give a stitched look to the throne. I added a thin stroke to the words and moved them to the top of the layer to help them read a little better.

Below you can see a nice little montage of Formula 1 footage from the 60's through the 90's.

Theres a lot of glimpses of some pretty famous people including Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart (Just a shot of his tartan banded helmet) Prost, Senna, Mansel etc.

Love that music.

I've started working on the new idea for the throne here. The words were just typed out and warped before being placed roughly in the piece.

You can see the layer pallete on the right. The devil is on the top layer and I'm working on the second layer down so I don't have to worry about overlaying type on the devil his self.

Proper layering is very important and it needs to be thought about carefully. This is something I learned to my cost after many images were created that I could barely touch because of their complexity on a single layer.

Idiot boy.

More flames being added. The file open in the background on the top image is my flames master which I'm plucking individual spears from and placing before checking for position in Indesign. You can sort of make out the roughwork I'd layed down for the original seat, but since this would make the spread the only R rated piece in the book it just kind of felt too much.

I'm moving and placing flame shapes around the image and saving it, snapping back and forth between Illustrator and Indesign to make sure that nothing gets in the way of the verses.

Its kind of tedious, but I know I'm near the end so I can just buckle down. I feel pretty good even though I've barely had my first pot of coffee.

Its a holiday weekend here in the US and I don't want to spend it working. In the same breath I don't think I could take three full days off.

I have a nice long snooze on the sofa planned for the afternoon and maybe a few hands of poker a little later too.

Oh yeah, theres a Sharpe (Sean Bean) movie on BBC later that I plan to watch, so I'd like to get done early and relax somewhat today.

T+5 days (T=28)

This is the last major page that needs revision. I sat down last night with the missus with a couple of print outs to try to work out the throne. I had originally intended to have it constructed of naked human bodies but it wasn't working so I needed a rethink.

The verse that applies to the image reads 'who sat on throne of sins once sown' so I came up with the idea of just placing the words 'sloth, envy, greed' etc. on the fabric of the chair.

The flames also needed to be finished so they looked right as they hugged the verses. Lots of work to do here but at least I have a direction now.

The late great Jim Clark in the Lotus25 at Oulton Park in 1963.

RIP

I placed the new version of the artwork in the Indesign document to get a sense of how it looks.

I'm liking it and I'm moving on....

This is the first time I've had a chance to evaluate both versions side by side.

The more I look at the new version the better I like it.

What do you think?

I'm off for a little breather before I start on the next batch of corrections.

This is the first time I've placed the new drawing on the existing artwork.

I like it, it looks better than the previous version.

I may need to add a little texture later, I need to live with this for a while to see how I feel about it.

Alrighty then, the drawing is coming together although I think I need to change his expression a little, give him a more frightened look perhaps.

I can work that out later.

T+4 days (T=28)

Last round of corrections. I've started to trace the sketch I posted yesterday. I don't often use transparencies as a tool in Illustrator, its kind of confusing to see multiple strokes and shapes ghosting each other, but here I'm trying to marry a sketch with an existing file that I think I can salvage parts of so its okay.

I have a few treats for you. The first is a piece of video of Ayrton Senna qualifying a Mac Honda at Monaco in 1991.

Its incredible to hear Senna talking about the lap and his philosophy that pushed him to such incredible heights. Hes says that when you drive at the limit that sometimes you can rise above that level and in this place you can fly so very high indeed. I hope this applies to all the areas of human endevour, and I think it does.

But theres always a price.

Ayrton Senna RIP

Alrighty then, I'm signing off for the night. I'll just post this quick scan of a page I want to work on tomorrow. I have a pose done, but I'm not happy with it so I thought I'd have him looking backwards to sort of identify where the devil is in the story. The sketch is just a marker drawing on one of the large scale print outs.

I've worked my way through the list of corrections leaving a couple of pages to tackle.

More tomorrow...

Heres the full house I just dumped

3's over 10's

Not going well tonight at the old table...

I just made another list of fixes that need to be done.

One page is going to be redesigned based on an older sketch. The way it is now just doesn't work, it looks nasty, it has to be changed. Luckily this means no new drawings, just a reprofile of the existing artwork.

My list of fixes runs to three pages of the worst handwriting you have ever seen. I'm going to get started on them straight away but I don't expect to get all the way through until at least tomorrow.

Heres a shot of the cover with the flames etc. I can think of a couple of things I might like to do to it, but I can't think of anything that I must do to it.

Theres a real difference there.

I banged out a pdf of the entire book. I'll start making a list of all the problems that I can see to fix today before tomorrows print. I know I'm going to miss some stuff, thats okay. The point is to keep pushing closer and closer to something that I'm prepared to call finished.

I should point out now, even though I had finished my previous project more than a month ago that its still being corrected. Thats art/design/life etc.

Heres a look at how the decorated pages are coming together in Indesign.

I can smell the finish line at this point.

Tomorrow I'll get a large scale print proof done and do one last run through of corrections.

Oh yeah, today is T+3 days (T=28)

So after laying all the flames into a single document I can use this to assemble the decoration on the final few pages.

Its kind of a pick'n'mix.

I took all the flames from all the pages and popped them in a single document in layers according to order.

This is why I'm hoping I'll never have to draw the buggers again. As you can see, theres an awful lot of flames there, more than enough to finish the job.

Air conditioning is on the fritz, its about 110F in the studio which makes it very difficult to work.

More later, hope I can keep from passing out, trying to figure out what my next project will be.

Almost finished the pinstriping, just a few more pages to do.

I'm just going to post the original sketch for the page that I was reworking yesterday from an earlier project.

As you can see, its very rough, this was literally a 30 second drawing on my life time supply of cheap notepads.

I redrew this, taking a lot more care for the image I eventaully imported into Illustrator and traced from.

I might take another small diversion to redesign a page from another project. I'd been looking for this file for ages. Thats the problem with running 2 computers and 6 hard drives, when something goes missing it can be an absolute fucking chore to hunt it down.

T+2 days (T=28)

Decoration continues. This is one of the more complex pages, its almost finished but I'll need to see a large scale print to identify the last few problem areas.

That goes for all, or nearly all of the pages but as the complexity of the images increases it becomes more important to help push it the last few feet to completion.

I'm afraid that this is where things start to get tedious, smaller and smaller changes are required to finish the project. You'll have to bear with me, sometimes it may look like I'm not going anywhere, but at the resolutions that I can safely upload to blogger you could barely (if at all) make them out.

More later...

Aces baby, yeah I know. That is a big pot I'm just about to win.

Woohoo!

This is the rough flames and decoration on the LAST PAGE.

Not really, but its the last page to have the rough flames added in any form.

And so after a brief break its back to decorating the Highway book.

Thats Full Tilt open in the background.

So there it is, this is taken from the pdf.

I should point out that these things rarely go so smoothly. I think because the idea was good it came together so fast. Maybe thats how it works.

One final check in Indesign and I'm ready to output the first pdf test.

I'm looking at a lo-rez placeholder in Indesign again. The idea for the page was suggested by my brother, he mentioned hitch-hiking which I thought was a pretty good idea.

I'm adding in the final few details missing from the first pass before checking the positions in Indesign again.

When the position is correct I go back in to the image in Illustrator and refine the image at larger and larger magnifications until I'm happy with the basic look and color.

This is just me doing a trial placement in Indesign to get a sense of where the pages need to go to work.

I have most of the lines drawn in at this point, there are areas, like the hands, that have barely been touched. The lines for the hands are just for position.

Just starting to add color for the lines, playing around with the shapes and textures.

Decided to take a break and play with a page from my last project that my brother didn't like.

I usually have a policy of 'give me something better' when I get suggestions so I don't get stuck changing things for the sake of change. It sometimes works out, sometimes not.

Anyway, hes in hawaii for the week, lucky bastard.

Anyway, another workspace shot in which I'm just starting after placing a sketch on the artboard.

Working my way through the pages.

On the bright side, I think I may never have to draw flames in Illustrator ever again after this is finished.

I have three more pages to play with to get at least something down before the end of day. After that I'll do a large scale print and start to correct the problem areas.

From that point on its just a gradual push, layer upon layer of final tweaking, to the finish.

I hope to be there in a couple of days, fingers crossed.

Working on flames and decorations.

I missed my self imposed deadline, so its officially T+1 days (T=28).

This is another couple of screen grabs. I've resigned to myself that I'm not going to finish today. I don't feel bad about it at all. I can finish the pinstriping tomorrow morning when I'm fresh.

The air conditioning broke, its got to be about 96 in here.

Just going to post this snapshot of my workspace real quick while Blogger is back on.

More Later...

LAST DAY!!!!

I'm busy pinstriping and adding flames and decorations.

Blogger is acting up so I'm not sure what I'm going to get to post...

FINAL DAY!!!!

Blogger is giving me crap, can't seem to upload anything. I'm working my way through the pages using the pen tool in Illustrator to outline my flames and pinstripes.

I pulled some screenshots to show you the desktop and my MO within Indesign/Illustrator. I'll have to post them later when Blogger starts to behave again.

I have some ideas for calligraphic brushes which I'll apply to the strokes and outlines as soon as I make my way through the pages.

Tedious, but I'm getting faster at laying down the kind of lines I'm looking for. I'll have more ideas on that later I think.

Two days left.

I'm setting myself a fairly relaxed workload for the weekend, because I'm burned out.

I've already marked out the flames and pinstripes on a new small scale print of the book taken from a near final pdf I generated yesterday. I'll scan this in today and tomorrow will be ready to go on with the final stage of decoration.

I've been having a blast with this project, its got everything I love. Racing cars and hell and the devil and flames and crashes, oh my.

More tomorrow...

And Alonso wiggles his ass in Schumachers face for the last fourteen laps of the Turkish Grand Prix. Woohoo! Take that you red bastardo!

Sorry about that unrestrained enthusiasm, but it was a great race. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole thing.

Brilliant.

PS Fuck Ferrari...