Step-by-Step: Duck Journal

I wanted to post this entry for weeks now. It seems like Blogger has finally straightened out my picture-posting problem. (yay!) These are snapshots of a work in progress(completed by now!). I've mentioned before that I am a member of a journal group called 29,000 Floating Ducks. The theme of the project should be an obvious one. Anyway, it was my turn with the journal, and I worked furiously.

First, I create a thumbnail storyboard. I basically decide what the overall story will be, and break it up into chunks. (I went with a summer in Texas for this project.) I work with design layout and the flow of the story. I also place the characters in a variety of scenes and positions.
Next, I take the basic thumbnails and draw them to the size they would be in the journal. This is where I decide on the details of each scene and play with scale or perspective.

After I have the roughs done, I scan them into my computer, in case I mess up during the color study and want to start over. My color studies vary on the timeline I have. I created a very brief one for this project, because I just wanted an overall sense of emotion and dynamics. I figured if I didn't like it, I would change it as I went. (Which I've already done.) Now, if this were an assignment for a publisher, you can bet your patootie I would do a more thorough and thoughtful color study. You only get so many chances to get it right.
Once I'm hapy with the studies, I look over them to see if there's anything I want to change before I start painting. Do I want to move a character? Change the perspective? A color study is good because it can give you a sense of what the final result will be without having done all of your paint work. Finally, if I'm happy with what I have, I begin to trace the final images on to tracing paper. The mediums I work with aren't transluscent, so the light box doesn't help much. I have to do it all by "trace and rub."

Once I've transferred the images onto the prepped paper, I tape them down. If I'm working on something that has more than one part to it, I will tape all the pages down, about four inches apart. This way as I paint, my colors can be on more than one page at a time, and be a better match. It makes the pages seem more unified. Here's what I did for my section of the journal.
I'll post the completed pages later. I had a blast with this, and I hope Angela enjoys it as much as I did!