What does the Art Director mean by “I need you to clean-up your work for print”.

by Aidana WillowRaven

In the world of book illustration, you’ll typically find two types of artists: those who are fine art trained, and those who are graphic design trained. I am seeing more and more artists crossing and blurring those lines and performing tasks in both the “fine artist” and “graphic designer” traditions (often calling themselves ‘‘graphic artists’’ or ‘‘graphic illustrators’’ or some other combination), but the basis of the training for each is very different. Each approaches an illustration in a different manner and from a different perspective. They may sometimes use the same tool, but the way they use that tool can differ greatly. 

Understanding this difference is essential in my dealings with the artists at 4RV, and I assume it’s much the same with most ADs (Art Directors). I often have to explain to a fine artist what I mean by “I need you to clean-up your work for print,” where as a graphic designer usually knows what I mean already. This need to explain what “clean-up” means can frustrate an AD or publisher because to him or her, it seems stupid-basic-simple, unless they have a background in both traditions.

Hopefully, this post will help a few fine artists feel less flustered when their AD says, “I need you to clean-up your work for print.” It may also help your AD’s sanity if you already know what they mean when they say it ... lol.

Why does the AD think my work is “dirty”?

Let’s start with showing you what the problem is and why. When working with traditional mediums on artist papers, there tends to be a little bit of “dirt” surrounding the main elements of an illustration, especially if it has a lot of negative space surrounding it. 

When an artist uses lead or charcoal, for example, there is usually telltale dust from the medium that scatters on the paper surrounding the main elements in the drawing, or maybe there are faint sketch lines that were used in the building of the work.  In the graphic design world, these things would absolutely need to be removed unless the telltale dust or sketch lines were somehow desired for the work’s final effect; so most designers already know how. In the fine art world, these faint attributes add character and charm to a piece. It’s simply part of the art, and really isn’t even noticed or given much thought. Go to a gallery that has framed drawings (not prints, but originals), and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll notice similar bleed or run “dirt” on original watercolor or pen-n-ink work, as well.

 But, to get a fine art piece into a book, it must be scanned and made into a digital file. The scanning process involves a high intensity light to basically shine through your work and catch every bit of color, shade, and variance on the paper and interpret it in pixels on the screen. That means it picks up every finger print, every dust particle, every line, every smudge, then visually emphasizes it like a sore thumb. To make matters worse, once the finished layout goes to print, the printers emphasize that “dirt” even more, making the illustrations look muddied and unrefined. Can you see how art “dirt” could be a problem with the look and quality of a finished book?

So artists, don’t get offended when an AD asks you to clean-up the work. Nothing is wrong with it, other than it’s not ready for print, okay? So, if you’re not willing to pay a graphic designer to clean-up your work for print (designers in my area pull $45 an hour or more), then here are a few tips on how you, the fine artist, can do it yourself with the help of a photo editing program (like Photoshop) and a little patience and time. I’ll be using Photoshop for my examples and descriptions, but most photo-editing software does primarily the same thing; so edit these tips according to your own needs.

First step: cleaning-up the negative space.

If your illustration is not a “full bleed” illustration (which means full color or imagery goes past the edge of the trim line), then there is going to be some degree of negative space (area where these is no color or shading). Clearing these areas from medium debris and "dirt," even dust particles that got transferred from a dusty scanner, is the first and easiest step, though it can be quite time consuming.

In the chapter heading illustration below, you can see a lot of “dirt” surrounding the main elements. By the looks of it, the upper left quadrant is possibly due to scanner streaks left over from the last time the scanner was wiped down. On the three other quadrants, you can see paper edge. For the book’s purposes, all we want to see is the bat, ball, and chapter number. Everything else has to go. There are many ways to do this, but I am forever in a rush trying to meet a deadline, so I look for the fastest, yet effective ways to use the many tools PS (Photoshop) provides.

*Illo: a3 chapter 1*

 If you look on the left, you’ll see I’ve started with the polygonal lasso tool. This tool allows me to surround the main elements in a loose fashion (not to close to the image, just yet) by clicking at key spots and creating a series of straight edges. I then go to the top and Select-Inverse, which selects everything but what I surrounded, then I either erase or delete the space, or, if I want to be sure I don’t have varying shades of white, I’ll use my eyedropper tool to pick-up the paper's color and paint the selected negative space with a big brush size to ensure I fully cover the space. 

You can also use the paint bucket tool to dump large amounts of color at once, but sometimes the computer reads darker shades as separate colors, and it won’t cover as well, needing several dumps or odd variations, which is what we are trying to remove to begin with.

Once the bulk of the negative space is clean, now it’s time to refine the elements. Zoom in to get a better look and avoid potential damage to the illo (I should say now – SAVE OFTEN – I’ve lost hours of tedious work because I was too involved and focused to remember to save every few minutes. Unlike some other programs, PS does not auto-save nor does it keep a temp file that remembers what you were doing).

I am still using my digital pencil tool, but this time with a smaller brush or head size. I carefully paint over the remaining “dirt” so that the only thing my eye wants to stray to is the scene elements. 

Second step: adjusting brightness and contrast.

As I get to the upper bat section, I realize that this illo is really too faint to transfer into print well, so next, I adjust the brightness and contrast. A soft image is appropriate at times, but not in this instance. We really want the reader to see the bat, so it has to pop. Go to Image-Adjustments-Brightness/Contrast to get the pop-up window that allows you to adjust smoothly along two dials. In this instance, I darkened it by -50 and upped the contrast to 100.  Compare the before and after: *

before ~ after

Since this is a more personal sense of aesthetic, the settings will vary for each piece. Do try to remember, however, that all of the illos in a book should complement each other. So although each will have slightly varying settings, at some point you’ll want to view them side-by-side in groups to make sure they are set at similar contrasts and brightnesses.

In my next post I’ll cover what clean-ups need done in the positive space (in the area where there is actual art work).

Aidana WillowRaven

Art Director & VP of Operation

4RV Publishing

*This post is meant to be a basic tutorial, not an in-depth course. Not all aspects of clean-up are covered here, just some basic ones.

*Today’s illustrations were drawn by the late Kipp Davis, for the soon to be released 4RV publication Girls Love Softball, and cleaned by WillowRaven since he passed before he could complete the task himself.

Perfect example as to why every illustrator should learn basic layout design.

by Aidana WillowRaven

In college, I took a design elective as part of my fine art curriculum. I had no intention of being an ad designer or a logo designer. I only wanted to draw and paint for books. I took it because in my first semester we had to produce two framed and matted originals for finals. Before I put my illustrations under glass permanently, I wanted to sell a few of them as prints at an upcoming con. I went to a design shop, paid $45 an hour to have someone 'clean-up' the original for print. I watched over his shoulder as he worked. All he did was scan my drawing, open it in Photoshop, select the eraser tool, and erase all the little blemishes the scanner picks up that the naked eye tends to ignore on original works.

Granted, it was a tedious job. It took him three hours to zoom in and painstakingly remove every stray pixel, but was it worth my paying $45 an hour just to use an eraser tool on zoom? At that time, yes. I didn't have the software or the skills to do what he made look so boringly simple. But take a wild guess what class I added to my schedule the following term? You've got it. Introductory Computer Design.

Now that I've been in the business a while, I don't see how illustrators get by without knowing at least the basics of design and book layout, but you'd be shocked to find how many have no idea how to regulate  the size of their 'canvas' to accommodate room for text in a book.

Many illustrators have a hard time guessing how much 'negative space' to leave for the text. Why is this a problem? It leaves it up to the designer to either cut and crop the art work or to ask the illustrator to re-do or adjust it to accommodate the text.

When I am going to illustrate a kid's book, I first layout the often rough draft in InDesign. I figure out what parts of the text are most visually interesting on that page or spread (note I didn't say in the whole book -- save that for the cover art, if you really want to do it), rather than doing a bunch of illustrations that may not be able to be used due to poor placement.

Then, I create a 'canvas' for that particular page or spread using bold colors and sections. One section represents where I can freely place 'viable' art, and the other block represents where the text will be. This is where my 'negative' art will be or where I'll chose to 'fade to text'.

I do this right in the layout, right beneath the text, using the rectangle tool. Then I hide the text and copy/paste the rectangle into Photoshop. Once there, the image tab will tell me the exact size I am working with. At this point, I can either pull it into my 3D software, or I can print it out and re-scale it manually, to use it as a template for my physical composition.

The negative-space art can be anything from a faded area to a blank space to nondescript imagery (like sky or grass). Nothing that could conflict with the text visually, or the designer, if it isn't you, can place a text box or erase it out, and it wouldn't disturb the important art elements. Personally, I am a control freak (accepted this years ago) when it comes to my art, so I'd rather be the one deciding how my work gets presented; that's why I do the design for all of the books I illustrate. Let's see the composition before the layout.

Now if this were a 'normal' art work, there may be a feeling of 'weight' on the left more so than on the right (probably why my sub-conscience stretched that rope clear across the page to the other end and slightly pointing toward the barren corner ;P) , but as you already know, this in not meant to be a stand alone piece. On the other hand, I also feel an illustration or cover art piece should have the strength to carry itself, too, probably why I chose to include the full scene, to give the art itself a 'base'. 

Even if you don't wish to become a designer, you can see how KNOWING for CERTAIN where your art can and can't go on your 'canvas' ahead of time is a big help in deciding your colors and composition. That's why I encourage every illustrator to take a basic layout and design course. The most it can do is increase your skills and your art. Now, let's put our finished composition in the layout:

I don't know how well you can tell, but I initially had planned on fading out the tied-down rope, which ran through the first few lies of text, but I felt it took something from the visual. Luckily, I'm the designer, so I had the luxury to shift the text down a little bit. If I were just the illustrator, the designer may have chosen to alter the illo in a way that I would not have liked.

So you see how knowing design can help you plan the composition, and how it can help protect the work as well.

Next article, we will go over the post-work techniques I used on the above digital painting.

Aidana WillowRaven

Art Director & VP of Operation

4RV Publishing

RESEARCHING YOUR ILLUSTRATIONS ~ The trouble with Frogs

by Ginger Nielson

You, the illustrator, have been chosen to illustrate a manuscript. Your publisher thinks it fits your style.  It is a story about a magical jumping frog with some big problems. You might have some as well. Truthfully, you have never had much contact with frogs.

Now what?

For any picture book there will be an amazing amount of time spent drawing, painting, collaborating with an editor or art director.   There will also be a certain amount of research to be done.  Even a book about an imaginary frog will take time on the part of the artist to not only interpret the vision of the author, but to actually take a look at real frogs.

This can be done by observation of the real thing... photos you take, photos others provide to you and internet and periodical searches.  Even videos can help.

Did you know you can stop a video on You TUBE while you make a quick sketch of your subject?  This can be very helpful if you don't have much access to the real thing.
You may want to watch the way a real frog moves. What does it look like in and out of the water.  How does it jump.  How does it catch food.

The searching and gathering of the information is step one.  The next step is to fit the character you are drawing or painting into the specific style of the manuscript and your own artistic style.

You may need to provide extremely detailed and realistic illustrations.  On the other hand you may need to be quite whimsical in the approach to the character.   This is true not only for frogs as noted in this example, but for all the characters.  Humans, animals, and anthropomorphic animals need to have one thing in common in a picture book:  "Character."

The above illustration was used for T shirt design 

Even Lizards can be comical or whimsical and still be based upon the actual observation, photos or videos of lizards.

How do you arrive at the essence of your character?  Partly through the manuscript.  Partly through your own talent and experience and partly with the aid of the editor or art director's comments.

Finding the right tone for an illustration will depend upon the tone of the text.  An illustrator will do the best job for a client when the illustrator has a good grasp of the manuscript and has read it over a number of times.  The effect can be different with each reading.  Some facts that jump out at first may become less important if another aspect of the story seems to be more important for the reader to "see."  This can also mean not using an illustration and substituting it with another. An illustrator needs to be willing to give up some images just as a writer needs to be willing to give up extra words.

Getting from "here to there" in an illustration takes time and study.  It means preliminary work before you jump feet first into the water.  The work an illustrator does to perfect a character before creating pages and pages of that character is an important part of the journey.  The big PLUS is that it may not only make the work more enjoyable but create an opportunity to develop a character that is also quite memorable!

My best advice to any illustrator is to always have a camera with you as well as a sketchbook.  If you are lucky enough to see something unusual, interesting, or something that actually pertains to the work you are doing at the time, you will have the tools you need to record the moment.  You never know when an opportunity for a great resource will pop up right in front of you.

You are invited to my website *:)

and my blog~