Okay, I'm having an awful time with blogger today so I'm going to include a link to the gallery I placed on my website for now until I can get some posts up here.

Blogger is really slow this morning, I'll have to post the pages later.

Save the image and snap back over to Indesign to see how the whole thing hangs.

I like it, done and ready to move on.

I'll do a large scale print tomorrow just to make sure I haven't missed anything and then maybe post all the pages for your viewing pleasure.

Its been a blast. I love the way the book looks, I've learned a whole lot by doing it and I'm looking forward to starting on a new book soon.
I have a few ideas I've been kicking around for the next project. One is about hummingbirds, I have another idea about polar bears. I've not commited myself to anything just yet and I have no deadline in mind in which to start (or finish) it.

I'm off to the bookstore today with my girl. I'm just basically happy to be done and casually thinking about what to do next.

Its labor day here in the US so I don't have to work.

Pity the poor buggers who do.

Save the image and snap back over to Indesign to see how the whole thing hangs.

I like it, done and ready to move on.

I'll do a large scale print tomorrow just to make sure I haven't missed anything and then maybe post all the pages for your viewing pleasure.

Its been a blast. I love the way the book looks, I've learned a whole lot by doing it and I'm looking forward to starting on a new book soon.
I have a few ideas I've been kicking around for the next project. One is about hummingbirds, I have another idea about polar bears. I've not commited myself to anything just yet and I have no deadline in mind in which to start (or finish) it.

I'm off to the bookstore today with my girl. I'm just basically happy to be done and casually thinking about what to do next.

Its labor day here in the US so I don't have to work.

Pity the poor buggers who do.

Save the image and snap back over to Indesign to see how the whole thing hangs.

I like it, done and ready to move on.

I'll do a large scale print tomorrow just to make sure I haven't missed anything and then maybe post all the pages for your viewing pleasure.

Its been a blast. I love the way the book looks, I've learned a whole lot by doing it and I'm looking forward to starting on a new book soon.
I have a few ideas I've been kicking around for the next project. One is about hummingbirds, I have another idea about polar bears. I've not commited myself to anything just yet and I have no deadline in mind in which to start (or finish) it.

I'm off to the bookstore today with my girl. I'm just basically happy to be done and casually thinking about what to do next.

Its labor day here in the US so I don't have to work.

Pity the poor buggers who do.

Fairly simple, I just enlongated the shape of the head and moved/rotated the mouth line to better fit on the new placement. I'm quite happy with the way it looks and I'm ready to wrap it up.

My lists can seem kind of anal to some, but by putting everything that I think is wrong down on paper it helps me to get through an illustration without losing my train of thought. If I only listed major corrections I might skip or forget the minor ones, and enough minor corrections can be a major headache when you're working to anything resembling a deadline.

The artwork opened in Illustrator. The whole process shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

I'll try editing the elements that are there first, if that doesn't work I'll draw in a new shape.

T+7 days (T=28)

I have one last page to edit, and its and fairly small change. The shape of the face is too round and I want to bring it closer to the peanut shape that I used for the other pages.

This is where it begins, the layout in Indesign. I'll use the links pallete to open the file in Illustrator.

T+6 days (T=28 days)

Sorry kids, its the day before labor day here in the states and I'm not doing a blessed thing besides relaxing and napping and reading the books I stole from my brothers place while he was on vacation.

More tomorrow...

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