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I'm looking forward to the day when one of these companies wants to do a book on the series itself, and not just use them as illustrations, but I'm open to any suggestions.

Anyway, the guy came this afternoon, and his proposal was interesting. Seems they want to select 20 of the prints from my series, and publish them - in outline form - as a colouring book ... for adults.

I thought they were nuts, but it seems they're serious. They said that there is a 'huge boom' going on these days in adult colouring books - part of the current trend to supplying 'brain training' stuff for adults. You know, not to get Alzheimer's, etc. etc.

The book would have a full-colour section at the front, with illustrations of my actual prints, side-by-side with a selection of small images taken from the original Shunsho book. People could see how I took the originals and added my own colours, etc.

Then, on stiff paper for the rest of the book, with a tear-off line built-in to each page, the 20 prints would appear in outline form only, ready for people to tear out and colour. They could use colour pencils, water colours ... whatever.

They are offerering me a royalty of 8% of retail (1000 yen) on an initial print run of 5,000 copies.

Would you accept?

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'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [3])

I'm using the Wacom tablet, and have to admit that this makes the job so much easier (if that's the right word ...). There are a few real advantages to this tool, over the previous system I was using (thin paper on the light table), and the main one is the instant erase. That makes it possible for me to work much more 'carelessly', and when trying to trace these lines, that's really important. If I'm forced to go 'carefully' along each line, there is just no flavour left in the drawing, but if I can use the brush in a more carefree fashion, then I can just try and re-try until I hit it right.

The other advantage - and this is cheating no doubt about it - is that I can keep using the 'Rotate Image' function of the software to 'turn the paper' around to match the way my arm/hand wants to move. I'm left-handed, so drawing a line from top left down to bottom right is 'easy', but from top right down to bottom left is difficult. So I just keep spinning the image around and around to suit. (That's what I did with the previous tracing system too, of course).

The real challenge comes with the hair. When I did the hair on the 'Autumn' print in the four seasons set, it used the same sort of multiple block arrangement that this one will, but it had a particular point that made it easier than this one. The grey under-block for that print had a clearly defined edge (where her hair came down in loops along her forehead). This one has no defined edge, as her hair is done in the classical 'pulled-back' style, so the edge of the grey under-block is going to have to be ita-bokashi (block gradation), and those are very difficult to print cleanly ...

The other difficulty here comes from the fact that the original isn't a print, but a painting. He used a fine brush and just kept overlaying dozens and dozens of little strokes for hairs, some very faint, some stronger, some still stronger. I have to 'break it down' into clearly defined layers for printing, and it's difficult to get the same natural appearance. First test printout of my tracing a few minutes ago got the 'delete' treatment right away, so after the coffee break it's - literally - back to the drawing board!

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [3]