After your FW endorsement above, I tried again and did a little experiment. My bottle of burnt umber stayed resistant to washes but the black started smudging again. It now turns out I actually have a bum bottle of black FW acrylic ink (it’s only a few months old). I just bought a new one and my watercolor washes went right over it with no problems.

Thanks very much for the info, Charles, and I’ll try your color mixing & thinning strategy as well.

Holly

Good to hear from you!

I’m using a combination of several FW inks for my outlines, a mixture of Sepia Brown with Black and watering it down a bit. So far it seems to be working quite well, with little or no dissolving once I start layering my colors. I did, however, just spill my bottle of the ‘perfect’ mixture so, it seems, that I’ll have to start from scratch all over again.

So it goes…
Charles

The new Stardust drawings really add to the previous and the dizzying perspective on the Village of Wall nails Gaiman’s description perfectly. Great to see new Stardust work coming!

Just wondering: I thought I had heard you mention that you were using FW acrylic inks for drawing and washes. Are you using FW on your initial outlining stage in brown and are you finding that their new “water resistant” formula runs when dry and painted over with washes? Or are you using another brand altogether?

Thanks!

Maureen, I’ll be posting the concept drawings for the fountain as well as photos of David Spence and I sculpting it, as progress develops on that particular project.

Charles

Fingers, toes and other parts crossed for Matthew (not eyes though…too hard to type). I couldn’t afford to do Comic Con this year so haven’t seen any of it other than the still shots on the web. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

I have the reprints of the new and upcoming Stardust books on the book reference pages, but not “The Making Of” yet since I don’t have any ISBN info or thumbnail for it. If you or Stephen Jones have any info on it and would like it up there now, let me know. I didn’t find anything on Titan’s site, nor Amazon.

I google’d for some info on that fountain and found a few images. Wow! I can’t wait to see that when it’s finished. I’d say “don’t work too hard” but I can see it’s already too late…

Maureen

I’m curious… do your pencils “live on” after you’ve scanned them in, or do you ink and paint directly on the original pencils? They look so nice… thank goodness for large format scanners!

-Casey

I’ve heard from Stephen Jones in the UK, the writer of the ‘Making of…’ the movie book that Titan will be publishing. He wrote to tell me that he had seen a rough cut of the entire film last week and simply said, “You and Neil have nothing to worry about.” Great news but I wish that I could have been there too! But still, cross yours fingers and send happy stardusty thoughts Matthew’s way, okay?

I thought that the article on me (which features loads of full color art) in the latest Faerie Magazine came off rather well. There is also a long ass interview in the next issue of ‘The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts’ wherein I wax philosophical. Lots of talk with only two images. Take you pick.

Charles

The new issue of Faerie magazine showed up today – nice article! Where is the fountain going to be located? I remember where the theatre is but don’t remember any large-ish empty spots.

Maureen