If books were like movies...

If books were like movies, then this new book I've been working on would be a historical costume drama. It's non-fiction in theory, but I've tried to make it read like a fictional story. It's set in the past... 100 years ago, so it appears that everyone is in costume.

It's more of a Jules Verne type story, with astonishing adventure to do with dirigibles, flying bicycles and that sort of thing. I actually sent away to the patent office trying to get some kind of copyright on the story, since I think it'd make a terrific movie.

I have discovered that it requires a goodly deal of attention to detail to recreate scenes from a past age. In fact it takes a LOT of drawing! It requires drawing until one's hand is ready to fall off, essentially.

Just categorically, I'm sure in the last few months I have drawn the following: (partial listing):

4 horses, complete with harness detailing
3 carriages (those spoked wheels are challenging!)
3 antique motor cars
15 vintage skyscrapers including the Flatiron building
150 costumed extras for background scenes
17 feathered hats
12 pigeons
15 bicycles (bicycles are notoriously difficult to draw)
16 bowler hats and the gentlemen wearing them
12 straw hats and the gentlemen wearing them
14 ladies in fancy full length skirts
16 dirigibles
16 victorian houses
16 assorted odd children in vintage garb
1 Titanic like steam ship
7 odd bizarre flying machines
4 picket fences... (those take a while)
2 ironwork fences (those do too!)
5 assorted lawns and park settings
4 barn interiors with multitudes of tools and furniture
22 drawings of the main character
17 drawings of the character's mother
12 drawings of the pet dog
1 complete vintage fire fighting crew, with antique firefighting pump truck
5 barrels
37 tiny people in a crowd, with aerial perspective

Oh... and I have drawn the complete 1904 World's Fair including Ferris Wheel.

I mention all of this mostly to point out the difficulty of achieving such a task for someone who basically has a hard time drawing. I make up for it with erasing and stubbornness though.

I think my next book effort will be an emotionally based story with two cute little animal characters... no crowd scenes or perspective required!

p.s. No, this is not the finished art... just the pencils. And that's the drawing just for one scene!

:0)

John Nez

Comments

[June Goulding]

Wow John... you drew all that!
I take my hat off to you :o)

And my next book is going to have simple shaped characters on a white background... instead of complicated scenes with a cast of thousands, so I know a little how you feel. (Though I dodn't have to be historically correct!)

[john nez]

Yes.. I never realized how complicated doing historical picturebook illustration might become. All those details!

Oh well, it gives me something to do at least.

:0)

[sharon lane holm]

...hard time drawing? I think you draw wonderfully!! Wow, lots of stuff! Good luck-hope you sell millions!
thanks for sharing
sharon lane holm

[sharon lane holm]

...hard time drawing? I think you draw wonderfully!! Wow, lots of stuff! Good luck-hope you sell millions!
thanks for sharing
sharon lane holm

[janet Montecalvo]

I think your work is amazing! Janet Montecalvo (the lurker)

[Barbara Johansen Newman]

John, I love these drawings! SO fluid! SO wonderful! Are you sketching in normal media then scanning or sketching right on the wacom? I ask because they look so loose.

I just ordered the Cintiq--hoping I could sketch right on to the tablet.
Barbjn

[john nez]

Glad you like them, Barb.

I just sketch in pencil on vellum... my favorite drawing surface is the Bienfang 100%rag translucent marker paper.

Then I scan them into the Photoshop 'beauty spa'.

Each single page is made up of dozens of scanned in 'bits'. Then I arrange them all like a collage to arrive at the finish drawing.

It's more fun & flexible that way.

:0)

[christine tripp]

15 bicycles (bicycles are notoriously difficult to draw)

UGH, John I can so feel your pain, I hate bikes!!!! (and wheelchairs:)

The work (and the amount of it) is just Super!!!:)

Barb, you ordered the Cintiq!!! I loved that thing when I played with it in San Fran years ago at a cartoonist convention. You will have a BALL with it, John, you NEED that!!!