Drawing little altar boys
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Sorry I haven’t been doing much here lately. I’ve been unusually busy for once, putting in long hours that didn’t allow for much blogging. Any time in the past few weeks that Greg has called and asked what I’m doing, I’ve answered “What else? Drawing altar boys.”That sounds pretty weird, and it’s even weirder to have it as a full time occupation, so it’s just as well it’s a temporary assignment. I’m illustrating a picture book for Conciliar Press entitled “The Littlest Altar Boy” about the thoughts, anxieties and impressions of an altar boy on his first day of serving. He envisions disasters and comes close to having one or two.
All of that has given me a wonderful opportunity to make the kind of kids’ book that I would want if I were a kid. It’s so easy for the Orthodox life to seem all about serious stuff, and there’s plenty of time for us to grow into that. But I think we’re sometimes a little afraid of showing the lighter side to it all, and that’s what I’ve been working to capture.
And I also wanted to capture a little of all the personalities we encounter, because I think the impression that my non-Orthodox friends and family have sometimes about what goes on in church is that we’re all so busy being holy that we don’t have time to be human. And just the opposite is true: I don’t know where I could see so much humanity on display as in church.
So that’s why I’ve been neglecting the blog, and my apologies there. I’m coming into the homestretch with the book, so I should be able to start spinning up again.And self-promotionally speaking, if you want to be the first on your block to pre-order, HERE it is in the online catalog from Conciliar.
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A very good reason to miss blogging! Have you gotten your Wacom tablet yet?
The Wacom would have been very handy in this process and saved me a lot of time, but I got nervous about the time I would lose in the learning process, if that makes sense. What I haven't found yet with the Wacom is a "brush" that will let me do quick vector art — I saw an online video of a graphic artist that had created settings in (I think) Illustrator to do that, but he wasn't specific.
So I still do the linework in real-time, then scan them in and add the color and effects in Photoshop. I still could've saved a bunch of time if I had the Wacom tablet tricked out, just because I could've quickly alternated between brush and pencil, varied the sizes and opacity, and so on. I did it all just with the mouse, and the average illustration took my probably about five hours to complete. I'm pretty sure I could bring it down to half the time if (a) I did it more and was more sure of myself and (b) had the Wacom all customized and ready to go.
All the same, if you look at that cover illustration in the catalog, I added in all the background texture in the illustration on the Wacom.
Long story short — pretty sure I'm going to look back and feel like a doofus that I didn't just go for it, but I got nervous and went with what I knew best.
I understand completely. I'm STILL in the learning curve with the Wacom tab and GIMP. Mostly what I do is cartoon line drawings and really basic photo tweaking so I haven't really had to plumb the depths of brushes, color and painting. I have NO clue about vectors. I'm sure there are youtube videos on all this stuff, but any serious program has a steep learning curve and until I'm pushed to the wall, I hang with what I know too.