Evolution of Illustration

This weekend I spent some time working on illustrations involving key story elements from my book. Specifically, some critical scenes and events that are happening in my story world that I'm illustrating for the first time. And I'm working along, and I take a moment to step back and look at the illustration and I was just filled with excitement. It was like everything that has been in my head regarding this story was coming to life it was being visualized how I always dreamt it would be visualized.

            I started this project completely focused on the writing I wrote the novel thinking that I would just follow a traditional publishing path and get the book published and hopefully it would open doors to some of these other ideas about immersive world media that I'm so interested in. But as I began researching the publishing world and figuring out how to get an agent and how to get published, I realized how much work and effort it is just to network and to talk to the right people at the right time. It made me realize that I could spend that same amount of time creating the types of books and stories how I’ve always dreamed they could be.

 I've been wanting to create an immersive world media project, but the first idea was a different concept that I had been taking notes for when I realized I could start with my first novel. If I went down the self-publishing path, there is nothing stopping me from creating this book exactly how I imagined. I can include illustrations as much as I wanted, I could create an app if I wanted, I could create bonus chapters and secret chapters if I wanted. Realizing that self-publishing could open so many more creative doors for me, I knew that was the direction I had to go. 

            So, I started researching Kickstarter figuring that was the place to start. And when I put my first budget together, I figured I would need to hire an artist to create all the illustrations I had in mind. I've been out of the game of illustration for years, my skills weren't as sharp as they used to be, I hadn't practiced in years. I just knew I couldn't create they Illustrations to the level I wanted. But after adding everything up I was left with a massive budget. I knew a Kickstarter goal that high would never get funded. It would be too big for a debut novel.

            Then after having a conversation with a friend of mine in the marketing and branding world it became painfully obvious the only way, I could make this happen was if I created the illustrations myself. In the publishing world and trying to get your stories published there's not a lot we have control over, other than creating the original work. And creating the illustrations was actually in my wheelhouse as a possibility. So, I started drawing. I knew the drawings wouldn't be good at first since I was out of practice, but I had two goals in mind; one to improve my drawing ability and two, hopefully use it to build an audience.

            To be honest, for the first several months all the drawings were not that great, they were not up to a professional level that I wanted for my book. My book is not mediocre the story is not mediocre I cannot have mediocre illustrations in my book. But I knew I could never look back. If I created a piece of art and posted it on Instagram and it was a piece of garbage and it didn't look good and there were anatomical problems with it and proportions were off, I did not have the time to waste lamenting over those things. I did not have time to complain and focus on my lack of talent. I had to push myself to only look forward, look at the next step look at the next drawing look at what I could improve next.

There were days where I felt like I would never be good enough. I felt like my drawings would never capture the vision that I had in my mind. But I had to keep reminding myself that was my only option and to just keep moving forward. This way of thinking this mentality began to permeate everything I did with this project. I think that's why I keep using the phrase “onward and upward”. Not because it's something I want to tell everyone else but it's because something I need to hear myself all the time.

So far over the last several years, all the drawings I've done has been focused on random dragons, dragon designs, creature designs all sorts of things, but I've never spent a lot of time illustrating actual moments from my story. I don't draw my main characters because I want to leave as much to the imagination as possible. But this weekend as I was working on some illustrations from my core story I was filled with awe and excitement. I was in awe that drawing all these days was paying off. The illustrations I was creating was good enough to be in this book they were good enough to tell the story they were capturing the imagination just as I had in my mind. There was a time I didn't believe that was possible but there it was staring me in the face.

I think it just hit me what consistent effort can really do to a skill set. What once seemed impossible is now possible. It's just exciting to witness it.

I'm excited to share this dragon-verse with you all! There is so much to see so much to explore and so many fun and exciting stories and adventures to go on I can't wait to bring the rest of it to life!