Macbeth is coming in just a month. The official release date is Feb 10th. You can pre-order it with your local/favorite indy bookstore or on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, etc. I will sign all pre-orders placed with Politics & Prose, and you can order signed copies directly from me starting a few days after the release. The eBook should also launch on Feb. 10th on most platforms.
To whet your appetite, I have set up an official product page (with interior preview) here. And now, I’m going to give you a look at the process I used to create this book…
As usual, I sketched the rough layouts using Adobe InDesign. This has the advantage of being super-easy to edit as I go along (as well as later, after I get feedback), being able to quickly move things from one page to another, use type and object styles to control document-wide formatting, and have a single master file. The main disadvantage is that the master file sometimes gets too big. I’ve learned various tricks to deal with that but it can still be a little tricky to manage.
After sketching and editing the rough layout, I printed each page in a light yellow and drew over it with pencil.
I scanned the drawings back in, used a b&w adjustment layer to get rid of the yellow lines, then did a greyscale value painting on a multiply layer over the pencil art.
I added textures I had created with ink washes on watercolor paper, then I added local colors and effects.
Sound effects go on their own layer so they can be removed or changed if the book gets translated into another language.
Finally, I dropped the art back into InDesign and drew clean borders and speech balloons.
– Artwork copyright 2014 by Gareth Hinds, shown by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville MA –
This video is edited way down, so a lot of great stuff is on the cutting room floor, but what remains still gives a glimpse of a very fun event.
Pam Munoz Ryan, MT Anderson and Kate DiCamillo all gave wonderful speeches which are barely hinted at, and Annabell’s intro was also particularly good. Oh well. At least you get to see me draw.
I was asked to create an Odyssey video that summarizes my whole process, incorporating shorter bits of all my other videos as well as concept art. You can watch it below or click through to see it larger on YouTube.
Holy cow! Not only did The Odyssey win the first round and advance in the Battle of the Books, but this is definitely one of the most beautiful reviews I have ever received. Thank you, Karen Hesse!
I attribute my win to the good wishes of many wonderful fans — especially Mike Lewis’ class at Deer Hill School. I recorded a tiny video message for their Read Your Heart Out Day celebration, and they came back with this. Mike and his kids totally rock. http://www.youtube.com/user/deerhill145?feature=mhum
This is kind of old news now — I thought I’d posted it already — but the Boston Graphic Artists Guild has a bunch of video clips on their YouTube channel from their graphic novel event, at which I did a presentation and participated in a panel.
I just realized that my timing is bad. I was going to post the honeymoon reports day-by-day, but I have other commitments pretty much 24/7 this week. So this post is just to say, the next few honeymoon posts may be delayed.
In the meantime, check this out — Candlewick has a YouTube channel. I hope to contribute some homebrew Odyssey trailers to it, later this summer. Let me know if you have ideas or want to help!
Paul Falcone at Wellesley Public Access put together this nice interview, including a few clips of me doing aikido as well as discussing my work and my influences. 15 minutes long.