This is what I’m seeing a lot of these days – slow-creeping progress bars. Slow progress bars while files open, slow progress bars while files save. Whopping huge files with multiple layers means lots of waiting. Not always something one factors into the time it takes to complete an illustration (also, do not underestimate the quirks of technology, nor the time-sink that is file management & organisation).

At this point, I’m making a second pass at the book as a whole – stuff’s finally falling into place, though there are a couple of pieces that aren’t as far along as I would like. I’ve updated a pdf doc with up-to-date screenshots of each piece so I can check continuity. My workflow and approach has naturally evolved over the many, many months I’ve been working at this, so there are changes in how things start to look and that needs to be reined in. Looking over each page, it’s pretty overwhelming what needs tweaking, finishing etc. Almost paralyzingly overwhelming. And that’s when it’s time to make a list. The list itself can look pretty scary, but somehow, putting these things down on paper allows me to remove them from my mind and free up that space to power the doing. Better yet, I was able to tick off a whole bunch of things on a list I’d made 4 months ago. And even better than that, I’ve got one DONE written in there. And wow, does that ever feel good.

Onward!
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This post is part of a series documenting my process of illustrating the picture book Dream Boats (author Dan Bar-el, pub. Simply Read Books). The entire series of posts is archived here.

View a slideshow of all the work-in-progress images including first sketches, reference material, mistakes, redraws, and tests, to final art at a much larger size, here.

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