Process: Treasure off the Coast
Hello there! Today, I wanted to share a bit of the process behind creating this image from Treasure off the Coast!
Treasure off the Coast is a middle grade novel that I’ve had the pleasure to illustrate, written by Nathan W. Landrum. It takes place in Dry Tortugas National Park, which is located off the coast of Florida. Only three percent of the park is land, the rest is ocean! In the book, the Junior Rangers Investigative Club spend a lot of time exploring Fort Jefferson on Garden Key, but they also travel around by boat to the others keys.
This particular scene was one of my favorites to illustrate. It’s a very tense and dramatic moment in which Lucy’s in a bit of a predicament, hiding from a disreputable figure! She’s very skilled at swimming though, which she uses to her advantage to keep out of sight.
This image started, like all images, with a brief scribbly thumbnail, which I sent to the client for approval. Once approved, I sketched over top the thumbnail in Photoshop to get a better handle on proportions and facial expressions. You can see in the thumbnail that the bearded man’s arms are missing. I spent a lot of time moving them around to get the clearest silhouette.
Then, I printed out the sketch and drew the final artwork in pencil on bristol paper. The first image on the left is the raw scan, without any editing, and the right shows the scan once edited in Photoshop. I cleaned up the grubbiness that the scanner likes to pick up and played with the contrast levels to get a clearer image.
The next step is coloring! (Or “coloring” in this case.) It’s a black-and-white interior, so the most important thing to keep in mind is contrast. I need to make sure everything is clearly visible and easy-to-read. I played around with the levels of the flat colors for a while until I was satisfied that all my shapes were clearly understandable.
Then begins the fun part - adding details and textures! I spent a lot of time noodling about with the water, and I’m pleased where it ended up.
After that, started adding in light and shadow, using overlay and multiply layers, respectively. And finally, I wrapped this image up with some watercolor paper textures and a subtle vignette to draw the eye inwards towards the subjects.
Treasure off the Coast is written by Nathan W. Landrum and you can learn more about the book by visiting his website! You can also see the full gallery of illustrations for this book here.
I hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for taking a look!
Bailey Vidler