Dec 30 2014
Something Wicked This Way Comes
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.
Wow. Looks like you have another winner on your hands. I’ve read and enjoyed all your previous work.