5PM
1- Illustrations were scanned and individually removed from the white backgrounds, each being saved separately. This was time consuming but ultimately made composing and creating pages extremely easy and quick.
2- The scientific descriptions for each insect were neatly handwritten onto decent paper using the lightbox and a sheet of lined paper underneath, again being scanned, edited and saved as above (but easier due to the contrast between b+w)
3- I chose enough insects (with a fair variety of style) for 15 pages A5, then the cover. A dummy book was knocked up to see which pages would fit where (for printing purposes). These were then arranged in photoshop to A4 pages. I doubled these up to A3 sheets to save on printing costs.
4- WHSmiths 135g sketchbook paper was used to print on via an MFD printer. Each A3 side had to be hand fed and flipped/rotated, at 20p a side. I used 2 sketchbooks at £4 each, 30 sheets each. Roughly £25 was put into the printer. A lot cheaper than sending it off to be printed, and I didn’t have to rely on HAL, our studio printer.
5- The sheets were then cut in half and scored with my trusty Stanley to provide a more snug fit. The cover was folded, for aesthetics and also a better wrap around. Staples bind it all together. The book guillotine was used to cut down and even out the page ends. Finally, a rubber stamp of contact details was added to the back page.
I’ve found creating this book to feel intensely rewarding, having put so much time into the illustrations, then spending hours (days) making the final product from scratch, using my own initiative and skill. I’m overall very proud of it, but can also see what I would change and improve for future projects.
(This will be covered in my next post, with some sample photos. Thanks for reading!)
March212012
Today I’ve edited 39 individual insects, cutting them out on photoshop, erasing the edges to a feathered effect so they can all be composed for future work, being put onto any background I want, hopefully with minimal extra effort. It’s taken roughly 11 hours straight, well, having an hour break, and a quick booze run. Quite tired now.
Better be worth it.
