jamesbattersby
  • Home
  • About James Battersby
  • Hire Me
  • Portfolio
  • Store
  • Works
  • Videos
  • Updates
  • Store Policies Page

The Giant's Causeway Finn McCool Jigsaw and Mugs

1/23/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Years ago I set my sights on creating souvenirs for the local tourist industry. I grew up hearing about the mythologies of the land and the famous landmarks associated with it.

Since then my postcards are in local shops, but what i'm most happy about is that finally i've been able to see my artwork on a jigsaw puzzle (ok so the first jigsaw I produced from this design was created about 4 years ago for my young nephews but i'm now able to offer it on my site). Back then I had created a jigsaw through a POD site (print on demand). At that time the production cost per jigsaw was just too high to be able to resell,

I decided to research into the possability of smaller independent printers being able to print jigsaw puzzles, so ordered up a few from the UK.
The first puzzle/printer was not up to standard unfortunatly. A few other printers were tried until we settled on one that although is a little more expensive than we had intended, the quality of the print along with the cardboard stock and the press quality is outstanding. We've tested this printer a few times now, all with excellent results.

So last night I spent the best part of 6 hours putting it together. I'm sure a person who is good at jigsaw puzzles would do it in less than half the time, but I haven't done a puzzle in years. I didn't intend to spend the evening engrossed in a jigsaw puzzle but I try to
Picture
"become" the customer in everything we offer because if I notice anything that annoys me, rest assured the customer will be annoyed with it too. I was careful to keep an eye on any peeling of the image from the cardboard (like the earlier puzzle/printer we'd tried).

In over 300 pieces there was not a problem and since then i've rebuilt the puzzle a few more times for good measure. I can truthfully say I am pleased with the results, and I admit, it still took me about 6 hours lol. I guess the key is to build the frame first and work on it from there. It was nice to be able to revisit many of the old illustrations I had created. Some of them are over ten years old but still have a great atmosphere about them.
In an ideal world I'd have them for sale in the tourist shops where they would get the most exposure but unless you're able to have the products produced in China at a minimum of 500 - 1000 pieces per order, then shipped here (along with the huge import tax waiting for us) you have to go the print on demand route. Thankfully i've found a great contact in the UK for the puzzles, and very competent and professional printers in Canada and the UK for the mugs.

I am pleased with our progress. In regards to the tourism stuff, it has been a slow progress since most of the time has been taken up by freelance projects, but since the mythology images are already created over the years, I welcome these new products to the store.
Picture
I'm also able to finally offer Irish souvenir mugs. I've currently secured a reasonable POD printer in the UK for cups, and have sourced a printer in Canada which can deliver to the U.S / Canada, so we'll see what happens.,One of the hardest aspects of producing souvenirs, card decks etc is not the illustration, but finding a printer / manufacturer that can take your artwork, print it, and having the product affordable while allowing both manufacturer and artist/creator a profit.
0 Comments

Packaging on our Mugs

1/15/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
I wanted to share with you a little that goes into the packaging of our mugs. (UK only until i research our Canadian/US supplier's packaging)

To the left we see an example of one of our mups. It's from an illustration of my partner Christine that I created a few years ago and to test out the quality of the mug it made sense to use one daily for a few weeks to see if it deserves my seal of approval.

The company that supplies the mug claims the mug is disherwasher and microwave safe and this seems to be very accurate.
It's equally great with both hot and cold drinks, which you would expect from a mug of this nature.

Another reason it was important to test out the company's mugs before selling them on my site was for the quality of the packaging. These mugs must be able to to ship to customers around the world, so naturally they need to be able to hold up in transit.
Picture
To the right you can see that the cup is secured in a plastic container. Another plastic container is then inserted on the top, keeping the mug secure in the cardboard box it comes in.
Picture
Being able to offer these mugs to the public has been a great dream come true. We envisioned offering Northern Irish themed souvenirs almost ten years ago but as everyone knows, sometimes these plans get put on the backburner due to work commitments.

With over 20 Finn McCool and Giant's Causeway themed mugs to choose from, we hope you will be happy with your mugs when they reach you, no matter where you are in the world. We also have similar Irish themed mugs like the Children of Lir, Dunluce Castle and the Bushmills Whiskey Distillery.
With the mug being secured with the plastic layer placed over the top the boxed is then sealed up.

Truth be told, a lot of research went into finding a company that would not only produce a mug at an affordable price but provide the best possible packaging. Now that we've found a company that can provide both of these things, we are proud to offer these mugs on our site.

Everything on our site includes FREE shipping, from cards and jigsaw puzzles, through to these mugs. Why free shipping? Well, If you're like us you'll much prefer to see the price of the item you are buying up front, without being hit with postage and packaging fees before purchase. Or, in much simplier terms we want to make shopping on our page a much more enjoyable experience!

Thanks for reading, and if you're interesting in checking out our mugs, click here
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

HILLARY'S WAR ON CARTOONS!

10/2/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
No, this isn't Pepe the Frog. He's just a stand in. I just don't want to get my website pulled!
Not being a stranger to creating a few controversial pieces of art myself, It was of interest to me that "Pepe the Frog" made it’s way to Hillary Clinton’s website (I'd link to her site, but well, i'm paranoid, so won't bother) in the form of an article telling us that it’s a “racist” symbol akin to that of the Nazi and Confederate flags. Are you kidding me?!

Yes, Pepe the Frog made it onto the ADL’s list of Anti-Semitic things because a few white supremacists supposedly used it in Anti-Semitic memes (I say supposedly because I have only ever seen Pepe show up in
Pro Trump memes which were not Anti-Semitic, racist etc).
 
Quite honestly I find the whole thing absurd. If a woman running to be President of the United States can be triggered by a cartoon, then there is not much hope for the country.
 
It would appear that the first time Clinton became aware of this cartoon frog was in an image called “The Deplorables”, which was based on the Expendables movie featuring Sylvester Stallone. I would post images but can’t trust that my website provider, Weebly, wouldn’t pull my website and I’ve spent years building it up to what it is today. Just look at what they did to fellow cartoonist Ben Garrison over at Zazzle!
 
Again, not worth the risk of having something happen to my website, but I feel the whole situation is bizarre. I personally like Pepe the Frog meme and often find it hilarious, and again I have never seen it used in racist or Anti-Semitic memes, but what Clinton and the ADL have essentially done, in my view, is impinge on free speech.
 
Assuming that Pepe the Frog has been used by White Supremacist people, I really feel that this does not make Pepe the Frog a racist symbol UNLESS the creator of the original idea, Matt Furie, claimed it was created for that reason, or at least had those leanings, but he does not. In fact Matt Furie, ironically enough is a Hillary Supporter. (or maybe he just didn’t want to get suicided lol). According to an article in AVClub, Furie is as confused about the whole thing as most of us are. In fact Furie, like myself, had never even heard about the “Alt Right” (the so called Alternative Right, a supposedly more far right version of right leaning Republicans….I THINK, I am still learning about this). I learned about the existence of the Alt Right from Clinton herself, so inadvertently she gave the Alt Right a huge boost.
 
There’s even a guy out there who had a Pepe the Frog tattoo before it “officially” became as evil as the Nazi flag. Now he’s thinking he’ll have to remove it in case it scares people. Since Hillary and the ADL have declared this cartoon a symbol of hate, anyone caught using the symbol will no doubt be ridiculed, if not outright shunned. The man has the good sense to at least be considering that the ADL should be forced to pay for the removal of his tattoo.
 
 
I’m sure I will receive hate mail, or a few negative comments. Fine, have your say, but the point I want to make is this. Trump may make for a terrible president, who knows, but can you seriously consider voting for a candidate who feels threatened by a cartoon? If she can’t deal with a cartoon frog, how the hell can she tackle a real monster? Like the 20 trillion dollar national debt? Good luck America, it appears you’re going to need it!

0 Comments

Twisted Tarot Tales Book Update

9/23/2016

3 Comments

 
Picture
Hello friends.
An update on the book. While we regret that it took a little bit longer than we initially planned, we hope that those who have ordered the books will appreciate the time and energy that has gone into it…or in more simple terms, we hope it was worth the wait! Lol

The book has finally arrived and we’ve proofed it….kind of. This needs some explanation so, without further ado, let me explain.
The books are 8.5 x 11 inches in size and around 100 pages. They will be printed in black and white (or more specifically grayscale), as we initially planned, though for an additional 6 extra U.S dollars you can upgrade to full colour printing. Sometimes campaigns offer upgrades from black and white to colour printing as a stretch goal, an incentive to raise another few thousand dollars in campaign funds, but this was our first campaign and we were still finding our bearings.

This also explains a little of the hold up. I initially began putting the book together on the assumption that it would be printed purely in black and white, yet when it came to depicting some of the photographs that we included to aid the narrative, I didn't feel they were quite good enough, and in fact including them would have been somewhat detrimental to the book. I felt that at the very least they would need to be printed in grayscale. An example below is a memory that Christine had of a place called Rocky Point. (which inspired the Ghost Train Six of Cups)
Picture
In the purely black and white version the photos weren't going to come out as clear as the linework illustrations. So we opted for a grayscale look...
Picture
See, much better! lol. A few weeks in, Christine expressed interest in a colour book, if only to have one for herself. Since the grayscale look is created through a colour process which involves a conversion to grayscale, this wasn't a problem. However colour printing can be quite expensive, as most people with a little knowledge in the print industry understands but at that time we began looking into the possibility of producing the books in colour, and at one point it seemed feasible with the funds we had received from the campaign. Sadly, due to varying factors, not least of which was the Brexit vote (Britain breaking away from the European Union), the strength of the British pound fell. Unfortunately the shipping rates to Europe from the UK has risen too, which means that we’ve found ourselves working with less campaign funds than we initially thought.
Picture
Don’t fear though. You will receive your book, and while we are still awaiting the proof copy of the black and white version which should be here soon, we have the colour version on hand and it looks great. To be fair, I do like the colour version better as it captures the comic theme of the deck much better, and is closer to our original vision, but the black and white version has it’s own merits too, it has its own charm. Currently I can show you the difference, print wise, from the black and white scans, and the pages from the actual colour version.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Again, I want to stress that you will get your black and white book as soon as I review the proof copy (Should be here within the week). However, if you would prefer to upgrade to the colour version, it will be an additional 6 U.S dollars (this covers the higher printing costs for colour. It will also be available on my website too, eventually, but at a higher retail cost, so for backers, you can receive it at base cost.i.e we are not making any profit from this, it's just an option we want to offer). If interested in colour books, please email payment of 6 dollars to @ [email protected] and include in the notes your name, address and order number (Only if you know what it is, if not, no worries)

Thank you so much for your understanding and your patience. A few more images of the colour version...

Picture
Picture
Picture
3 Comments

Cultural Revolution Orders - Update

6/23/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
While initially this section was almost always about random thoughts, it's been alerted to me that we need to keep people informed via updates to our products on my official webpage (which makes sense admittedly since this is the only place you can buy our products).

Up until now we'd been updating via newsletters, Facebook, even a stand alone blog on wordpress as we felt these were always the main places that people seemed to be seeing our work

In regards to the Cultural Revolution Tarot, we've had a bit of a hold up on getting the orders out due to a printing error on one of the cards (As you can see, the Six of Cups card on the left has a dotted red line surrounding it), we've had to wait until we recieve the replacement card for each of the decks. Rather than sending out the deck, then sending the replacement card a few weeks later, we decided on waiting just a little longer and sending the Tarot deck the way it was originally intended.

If you're reading this and have ordered one of the Cultural Revolution Tarot decks, we hope you understand and we appreciate your business. To be kept up to date outside of Facebook, i will try to update the website more regularly if and when a problem arises. Please consider also joining our Tarot related Newsletter Gypsy Journal as an alternative information source (besides our Facebook pages) for updates on our Tarots. 


Thanks
James



0 Comments

Brooks Rejected in Ireland!

7/20/2014

0 Comments

 
It's been awhile since i wrote anything on this blog, but felt compelled to say something about the whole Garth Brooks' rejection by the Dublin City council which reportedly lost the Republic something like 50 million euros. Although i like Brook's music, for example songs like "if tomorrow never comes", "the red strokes" (because of the art references possibly) and "somewhere other than the night", i've never been to a Brooks concert, nor had any tickets to see any of his shows in Dublin. In fact, i'm so out of the loop with it all, the only time i was aware of it was when the controversy hit the news. I feel bad for all the people that lost their money. Sure, there is now word that all tickets purchased from ticket master will be refunded, but what of those who bought them off one of the "unauthorised" sellers, who often sell tickets for twice or three times the regular price? And what of those who booked hotels? More than likely they will not be refunded.

It's not common for music artists to have their shows cancelled, but when it happens, it's often down to a singer losing their voice, taking ill, or, as was the case for the rolling stones not so long ago, the death of a loved one. I don't think i've ever heard of a case where such a big star coming from the states is messed around by a city council but that's precisely what happened to Brooks though when Dublin city chief executive Owen Keegan decided to mess up the entire event by only permitting Brooks to play 3 of the 5 shows he'd originally agreed to do  through Aikens Promotions. When faced with the very real possability of 2 of his shows being axed, Brooks was adamant that he would play all five or none. I personally felt that Brooks did this FOR his fans, rather than against them, which some suggest. Brooks was basically saying initially that he was not prepared to let any of his fans down by cancelling 2 out of 5 shows and to be fair to the man, Brooks puts a lot into his shows. I feel that Brooks decided early on to stand his ground and be firm in his decision because the PEOPLE, and not a bunch of council members, are what is important, and they should not have their entertainment scrapped by a bunch of highly paid beaurocrats.

What seems to have kicked it all off in my view, was the fact that Aikens Promotions did not seek permission from Dublin City council first and like all suits in positions of power, their nose was put out of joint. In other words this event was doomed to fail because Keegan, the council's chief executive, was not made to feel like "the man". That's entirely my own personal view having had my own fair share of absurdity and egoism from certain so called "professional amatuer"members when dealing with a committee over the past year. These people are all paperwork, complacency and lacking in any real creative vision. Any wonder such an event like bringing the biggest selling country music artist in the world to play in Ireland was going to have a problem when some city council was not consulted.

Many fans blame Brooks and Aikens Promotions but blame must be levelled at Keegan because while Aikens Promotions SHOULD have initially asked permission from Dublin City council, a council, knowing full well the enormity of the event and the potential 50 million euro boost to the economy from accomadation, transport, food and drink sales among others, should be able to, in the words of Brooks "work something out". Yet the inept council failed to do so despite the fact that, according to some reports, (http://www.evoke.ie/garth-brooks-will-cancel-five-shows-even-though-it-will-cost-him-millions/) a ship had already had set off from the U.S. Garth Brooks had invested a lot of money into the event, with a 90 strong crew and the plan to film the five events for a DVD and documentary.

What caused Keegan to deny two of the shows was the case of the 373 complaints from nearby Ballybough who did not want Brooks to play Croake park. While the views of 373 people should be taken into account, what about the over 400,000 people wanting to see Garth play? Out of those 373 complaints I am told that one third of all submitted complaints were falsified.

Whie It's stated that 373 complaints were filed to stop the concert, compare this to the 400,000 tickets sold. I mean think about it, if someone offered you a a few nights stay in a luxury hotel while the event took place so you didn't have to be within earshot of Brook's shows, or a few hundred euros to make your "suffering" a little easier, wouldn't you take it? Couldn't that have been arranged so that not only would the 400,000 fans have their shows, the struggling economy would benefit ( keep in mind that this is a country that needed an EU bailout back around 2008) and the country could attract even more big name stars instead of what we have now...angry fans who've lost money on now uneeded hotel accomadation, transport and God knows what else, a poorer economy and a bad reputation that is broadcast throughout the world we're told. All because of a bunch of disgruntled fake signature signing party poopers and some guy in charge of a council who needs to be handed a shovel and sent to clean out some cow shed, something with a little less brain activity.
Just looking at the many comments from people attached to news stories concerning this, a fair number have begun to see that it's Owen Keegan that is the problem and he is being called to resign.

But that's enough about the Republic. Unfortunatly it seems Dublin have chimps working within the council but that is no excuse for our own politicians and councils in the north who, if they had any sense, would have seized the opportunity and invited Garth to play here in Belfast, Londonderry or wherever else. You mean to tell me in the whole of the north there is no venue the size of Croake Park in which to cater for such crowds? Think of the boost to our own economy that a show like that would have created, never mind telling the world once again that Northern Ireland welcomes events and musicians from outside the country to come and play here. We need a lot more of THAT stuff, and a lot less councils and bureaurcrats. Northern Ireland should have taken Brooks in while he was here, when Dublin was messing him around. What message does it send out to other big name entertainers when they are rejected despite having paid big money for a 90 strong crew, including film, sound, pyrotechnics, stage production crews and etc?

At the time of writing, Garth has cancelled all 5 shows because the council would not budge on letting him play the remaining two. It would be very easy for fans to direct their anger at Brooks because it's entirely possible they may never attend a Brooks concert again unless they travel further afield. Why didn't he just play the three? Brooks is quoted to have said that it was unfair to be asked to pick and choose which shows to play and that it would be like asking a parent to choose between their children. I think it's a question of integrity. He could have picked some shows and said screw the rest of the fans, but he declined entirely in order that he treat all his fans fairly, yet it won't realistically be felt that way when so many lose out on money paid on accomadation and etc. Despite the frustration felt by fans it's important to keep in mind that Brooks declining the 5 shows, while dissapointing and maddening, it was, in my opinion, essentionally to expose the stupidity of the Dublin City council to the world but more importantly and primarily to prevent them from ever compromising a big star event again (assuming of course if we demand said council members to resign) A country wide organised effort of protests and demands for Keegan and co's resignation SHOULD have been undertaken while Brooks was still in talks here in Ireland. That would have sent the message of the people across loud and clear.
0 Comments

Alvin Art Tray

4/18/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
I recently acquired an Alvin side table tray for my art board and got it all put into place.

Talk about a difficult task getting an American company to ship it to anywhere outside of the United States. Finally i found a place in Chicago who had either the means or the foresight to think further afield.

There were of course a few places in the UK willing to sell it, which although would have been more convenient, would have cost well over 60 pounds plus about 20 pounds postage (if memory serves me). I think this one cost me under 25 pounds including postage (42 dollars) despite coming all the way from the U.S.(artsupply.com)

PictureThe table as it originally was...minus the side clips

which i put on there myself

The table itself was initially found by my eldest brother in a place called Refurnish in Coleraine. I believe it's an old architects table and i had kept whatever bits and pieces that came attached to it intact on the table up until recently. For years I'd always wanted one of these tables because, as anyone who draws perspective knows, more often than not you need a pretty big work surface to rule lines that run off the page and whatever else. As a young teen whenever i would come across a new art store in any town and city i would visit in Northern Ireland, I'd ask the same old question. I'd ask them if they sold artists tables, architects tables, comic book artist tables....none of which would ever ring a bell. They'd always look at me like i had two heads. Maybe things have changed nowadays. More often than not they'd shake their heads and say sorry....but if they were really trying, they'd bring me over to a A4 kid's lightbox and say "is that what you mean"....hmmm, not quite. Perhaps i had been asking the wrong questions, it's hard to say.
PictureThe trusty custom made lightbox..a combination of flood light, window frame

and chipboard...better than most of the stuff you can buy in my opinion..

thanks pops
For the past few years i'd taken to drawing more and more on the actual custom lightbox glass surface me and my dad had made a few years ago because most of the time my work involved editing and re-editing original images i had created and so tracing over existing images to recreate or alter them involved being at the lightbox more than the actual art table. It's only in recent times while drawing the likes of Sheila's Finn McCool sign, or the Cultural Revolution Tarot that i am getting around to drawing whole new imagery without too much need of the lightbox.



PictureBack then: With the amount of pens and pencils that were collected up

over the years the side table tray has come in handy for leaving less

overall clutter
The Bushmills Map and Brochure for example involved both drawing the map on the wall, as can be see in my videos, and the heritage images were basically all drawn with the use of the lightbox and reference photos.

It would be great if one day art became more of a big thing in Northern Ireland, enough to actually have a decent art store you could walk into which didn't always cater for watercolorists or painters in general.
1 Comment

Heavy Pencil Leads and Etc!

4/9/2014

0 Comments

 
PictureA box of 10 "sachets" of 10 non-repro blue

mechanical pencil leads
So the Color Eno pilot pencil leads finally arrived after their long journey from California, along with a customs charge slapped on them by "Border Force"....i mean come on, who chooses these names really? As i joked earlier, it sounds like some government superhero group who has the mutant ability to extort money from mild mannered cartoonists, i mean a package that weighs less than an apple has an 8 pounds sterling "handling fee" with 8 pounds in vat? A HANDLING FEE worth 8 pounds to lift some lightweight package! That's even more expensive than the postage and it flew all the way from the other end of the United States.

Picture
As i mentioned a few blogs previous, i was looking for the non-repro blue pencil leads at a more reasonable price considering how easily i seem to go through them and how expensive they can be (about 4 pounds each pack of 10 leads). Here they were however from San Jose California's jetpens.com at about 2 pounds per pack. Just what i needed i thought. I believe the postage was about 10 dollars and seemed reasonable. Little did i know that anything above the value of 50 dollars and the greedy assholes at "Border Force" want to slap a charge on there "just because", thus attempting to foil my plans at trying to save a few coins in my artistic endeavors. (hey what's wrong with trying to save a few pennies)


Picture with a handling fee of eight pounds sterling,

It would appear that handling these

pencil leads is backbreaking work
So what is the moral of the story? It can't be "support your own" considering that everywhere you look in the likes of Asda they have nothing but chicken from Holland, Brazillian or Argentinian corned beef, Polish sliced meat, Indian Surimi and so on and so on. So what is it? pick on the little guy who's just wanting to draw a bunch of cartoons? I mean a handling fee to handle a punch of pencil leads? backbreaking work i must say, i wish i could get paid as handsomely for lifting a pencil and sticking it on a plane....and VAT? I wonder what firework my hard earned cash helps contribute to when it goes up in smoke at the end of the year to the sound of Auld Lang Syne.

So if you're wondering why the word "starving artist" still prevails you can be rest assured that the government is partially responsible...but aren't they always? They want to take the color out of everything, even my Color Enos for heaven's sake!
Picture
The entire content of the package.
Picture
Back of the box
0 Comments

Illustrating Asian Characters

4/4/2014

0 Comments

 
PictureArtwork by Jim Lee, an artist originally from Seoul
Over the past couple of days I’ve been looking through many of the old comic books I used to have stored away in the attic from my teens and it’s stirred a lot of memories. For the past few months now Christine and I have been working on the Cultural Revolution Tarot and it is the first time I’ve ever drawn Asian characters extensively.

As a young man I was inspired by artists like Andy Kubert and Marc Silvestri in the 90’s and as I looked through the illustrations, particularly of the Asian characters, I remember a time when I would examine the various way these comic book artists handled Asian features, particularly the eyes. These artists were illustrating x-men related characters but i remember when i would attempt to draw Asian features, i could never truly get it to look convincing. In fact, even to this day i am still completely unsure what exactly it is in terms of an actual "process" to create believable Asian features in characters, though Christine tells me i tend to do a good job.
PictureAndy Kubert's work from the 90's on an asian character
We've been working on the Sun and Ace of Cups the past wee while in between projects for Portstewart and Bushmills. I think over the past few projects i've really learned a lot in terms of using layers because when you work on artworks with any number of people, you always want to accommodate their vision. When it comes to designing tarot cards or maps or signage, often you'll be called to shift things around, reduce items in size or blow them up bigger than what they originally are, colour particular layers, such as the background we've been doing for the Ace of Cups especially.
Picture
Getting back to the old illustrations of Asian characters, i've always been inspired by Chris Bachalo's illustrations but i feel that when it comes to Asians, they aren't necessarily too Asian looking at times, though that could be a combination of style and also that the characters themselves are sometimes a mix of two nationalities. Frank Miller's extensive work on Japanese characters in the 80's have a very differnt look from that of other artists like Silvestri and Kubert
PictureOur characters in the Cultural Revolution Tarot depict not only the Asian look, but whimsical ideas like pandas and koi fish and astronaut dogs. Children feature in our images extensively, bringing a bright cheery optimistic look to our cards.
All in all it has been quite rewarding artistically to work on illustrating Asian characters as it's something i have never really attempted before at length.

James
0 Comments

Revisiting The Bushmills Orientation Panel One Last Time

3/30/2014

0 Comments

 
PictureDundarave. From left to right. Before and After
As we near the time for the Bushmills orientation panel to go to the printers, I've found myself going over the map one final time and making a few last minute edits. With the many changes that took place over much of the past year, i found myself working with what i would call a "template" of the map of the village and what i mean by template i will explain here. While the map was hand drawn, and for the most part already complete, some of it still requires/required a clean up session as the group asked for new additional buildings and so on over the course of the creation of the map...and of course some of the edits were my own. If you will, imagine a new building being built in town. After it is built, scaffolding, cement covered wheel barrows and debris of all kinds need to be cleaned up before that mayor goes and cuts the ribbon and releases that "great work of architectural art" to the public.
PictureFrom left to right. Before and After. As you can see

i've added a slight bit of shading to the

buildings just to see how it looked.
When it comes to illustration/inks/colours, the same thing has to happen when placing new additions into the "town", except we're dealing with a lot of "cut and paste" cleanups, for example colors not matching up, or sidewalks not lining up correctly after they have been pasted in (for time saving purposes a few pieces of drawn road have been used over again, mainly on the road leading to Dunluce Castle, and the road leading to the Benvarden Gardens which is not featured on the physical map) At this point it's mainly touch-ups, straightening out roads and buildings and things of that nature.

As you can see in the before and after pictures, I've also toyed with the idea of shading the roofs of the houses. It was something i had considered early on and when Winston Boyce also mentioned it as a possible addition at one of the meetings last year, it was something that i would keep in mind upon the final revision of the map and all of the heritage image placements (separate images like the recently added Dunluce Parish shown below)

Picture
Getting back to the shading of the roofs though, i am still undecided if it takes away from the simplicity of the town map. At the same time it gives it a three dimensional look so i may keep it.

I believe there is enough in the orientation panel for the sightseer to make the most out of their time in Bushmills and look forward to getting it all put in place.



PictureThe Roll n Ruler at work
The new addition to the art table, the Roll n Ruler has been coming in handy as far as straightening the roads on the map. The ruler has actually been available since the 90's but it's not something you're apt to find in the shops. I ordered it online from the U.S and it arrived within the week.

While I'm at it, a word on the non-repro blue mechanical pencil leads.
PicturePilot Color Eno Neox Mechanical Pencil Lead - 0.7 mm
During the late Summer early Fall of 2013 i plotted out the entire mainstreet of Bushmills along with the Distillery and etc with the Pilot Color Eno Neox Mechanical - 0.7 mm pencil leads and the results were outstanding. It does exactly what it's supposed to, with the blue pencils showing zero in the way of blemishes on scanning the work in as lineart. In other words, all the initial planning sketches did not show up when scanning in the inked line work.
PictureThe Roll n Ruler at work along with the darker blue hues of the Pentel blue leads
 The work for Sheila's sweet shop sign however used up the last of those non-repro leads so i gave the Pentel 0.7mm leads a try (i had a packet merely to try it eventually). Now, those leads are of a dark blue hue...in fact they were darker than i had initially thought when purchasing online (hey, good luck trying to find such leads in your local UK artstore.) Still, i wanted to sketch out a few updates to the Bushmills map before handing it to the printers
PictureStill trying to figure out if they are "supposed"

to be non-repro blue
The problem however, is that these Pentel blue leads basically have the same effect as a graphite pencil lead has when scanning your lineart...they show up with all the scratchy rough preliminary sketchiness that you were hoping would stay hidden, which makes me wonder....what exactly are those Pental blue leads for? Perhaps my scan setting needs to be adjusted? In any case, i had my scan settings how i wanted them, and the Pilot blues work great so will have to revert back to those eventually (ordered a whole batch of those leads from the U.S and saved 25 pounds in the process). In the meantime I've done the roughs on one set of pages, and inked them over on another with the hand made lightbox. It gets the same result really but a little extra work.

PictureBefore and After (Left to Right)
The map nears completion and I'm sure I'm touching up little areas that most people wouldn't even notice, but to me, i have to be reasonably happy and proud of the work before setting it out for my local town to see, never mind the tourists that visit our wee town every year.

Hand drawing a map takes time, and you can probably see this from the videos i've posted last Summer when illustrating the initial sketches. Originally i planned on bringing about a sort of "general idea" of the town, which explains the oft crooked roads in the original (although no one has actually mentioned those) but i wanted to tidy it up to the best of my ability and that's where i'm at at the moment. All being well it should be done by the beginning of the week.
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2015
    July 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Art Nouveau
    Bushmills

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.