I scanned in the sketches that I did of all the essays and articles from
Then, in PhotoShop, I placed all of the sketches into a 20×30 inch space and juggled and resized and fiddled until I got them to fit. Here’s a little gif of the last couple versions as Paul and I decide where to place the logo:
and here is the tight pencilled version, on paper, ready for inking:
(click on image to enlarge in a new window)
Next: inking.
(Not an April Fool’s joke.)
Ah… springtime in Southern Ontario…
…and meanwhile, back at the PlanetSlade miscellany…
…next: the big question is how to fit all of the elements together into one composition…
in the meanwhile, have a Happy Easter!!!
I’m still figuring out WordPress and having fun using the photo “galleries.”
Please excuse me if I’ve used pictures from a previous Blog. Scroll over the pics for more details.
– Shelley
Gerhard’s “Store” is now open.
Check it out!
I was overwhelmed at the Toronto ComiCon with wonderful comments and orders for the Harry Potter print commissioned by Dark Hall Mansion.
To everyone who wanted a poster, please stay tuned as we set up a system to order.
The Wizard World Madison, April 8-9-10, is coming up fast.
We are going to be at table A33:
Hope to see some of you there!
Just got back from the Toronto ComiCon.
It was a blast!
Thanks to everyone who made it such a great show.
Continuing with Paul’s PlanetSlade commission.
These are my preliminary sketches for the ‘Secret London’ section of his website:
At this point it was becoming astonishingly clear what a massive undertaking this was going to be.
Next: Miscellany
Okay… so here’s what I’m working on now: Paul’s PlanetSlade commission.
Back in November (I am slowly getting caught up with my backlog of stuff), I received an email which read, in part:
‘I have a website called www.PlanetSlade.com with 34 lengthy essays on it. They fall into three main categories: Murder Ballads, Secret London and Miscellaney. What I’d like is large landscape piece which pictorially represents every one of those essays somewhere in its composition. There are many images already up there on PlanetSlade which you may (or may not) choose to borrow as representatives for that particular essay on the finished piece. If you’d care to sneak a tiny Gerebus in there as a little grace note too, that’d be fine by me. I don’t mind whether it’s a “composite” piece with all the images sharing the same environment or a “panelled” one with each essay consigned to its own segment. My only stipulations are that it be landscape in orientation and that the PlanetSlade appears very prominently somewhere on the piece. Everything else I’d be happy to leave up to you.
Thanks very much.’
One of my favourite things to hear: ‘Everything else I’d be happy to leave up to you.’
I spent quite a bit of time going through www.PlanetSlade.com trying to quickly glean enough information from each article to get a sense of the core element that I could use to pictorially represent it. I found myself quite often getting engrossed in the article, having to tear myself away and move on to the next.
I also did a lot of searching through Google images for reference material. I’ve ended up with 547 files in my PlanetSlade folder. Here’s an example of some ‘period clothing’:
I decided to tackle the ‘Murder Ballads’ first, since they seemed most prominent on the website and have a common theme. The challenge was: how to portray the grizzly murders? Since these articles were about songs, I decided to include the musicians, which seemed to naturally lead to dance. I found a whole bunch of dance poses:
…and I turned the ‘Murder Ballads’ into ‘Murder Ballets’:
…except for ‘Stagger Lee’ which I based on the Jack Ruby/Lee Harvey Oswald shooting…
…just ‘cuz.
Next: Secret London.
