Book of Drawing Development

Read the Book HERE

For my Book of drawings I decided to go with a style very much influenced by NoBrow books. This is very style based and quirky, compared to other influences, as they focus primarily on the technical design of comics. However, I also feel that unless illustrations have been specifically intended to be serious, they should hold an attempt of comedic value – I have tried to exhibit this in my work.

As all of the comic plots were based on real jokes, stories and experiences from Jamie and myself, very little story development was necessary. Therefore, I started immediately with a rough sketch in order to organise my ideas. After deciding the stories and drafting the layout I began looking into many different styles of comics and comic illustrators. After the initial digital fine-lining I decided that I wanted to do a monochromatic book. Unfortunately I soon realised something was wrong; everything appeared far too neat, clean, not in my own style. In order to make the comics more ‘mine’ I wanted to simulate a real pen or fine –liner.

After some research I found a good free-use Photoshop brush intended for lining. Above is a comparison of the regular Photoshop brush (Left) and the lining brush that I used (Right)

After re-lining my comic the original design of having every one comic per page seemed far too cramped. In order to fix this I converted them to five page comics.
 Here are some finished photos of my book after binding. I printed on high grain card so that speckles would come through and it would look a little more authentic. To bind the book I used a perfect bind technique. Here I used A4 card folded over for each double page spread, before gathering all five folded A4 sheets to create what's known as a signature. Then pressing the pages together in a vice I used Elmer's glue multiple times up the spine in order to create a strong bond. Finally I spray mounted the front and back blank pages to the cover.

Colours seem faded probably because I'm posting from PC and not the mac I printed on.

Here are some finished photos of my book after binding, i printed on high grain card, so that speckles would come through, and it would look a little more authentic, I bound the book using a perfect bind technique, in which, I used A4 card folded over for each double page spread, and then gathered all five folded A4 sheets and created what's known as a signature (group of pages) I then pressed the pages together in a vice and used Elmer's glue up the spine multiple times to create a strong bond, after that I spray mounted the front and back blank pages to the cover.