Producing A Blog Header Illo -The Choices!

 Author Linda Godfrey asked me if I could produce a new header for her blog. Well, I said I would.

Most people think it's a case of draw something and that's it. I never get surprised at how ignorant people are about how long it takes to draw omething.  "Go on -just a full page illo, a few minutes work!" Anyway, the point is that if you have your illustration -in this case I combined "Mysterious Hominid" with "The Werewolf of Hull" hich took ome cropping and repositioning after I had decide which went to the left and which to the right- you have to decide on text.

Yes, you can just "slap in" Times New Roman but that does nothing really. The lettering has to suit the art -Moebius once told me that an artist should always letter his own artwork as it is part of the creati8ve process (he never saw MY lettering). So with book or comic title text several things have to be looked at.

1. What font or text type?

2. The colour of the text (wrong colour can throw artwork "off")

3. The positioning of the text.

Say you get 1 and 2 fairly quickly or decide it is going to be one of four types. You whittle it down to the one you want to use but then 3 needs sorting. There is one thing I hate and that is having a good cover illo that then has to have text covering part of it but that's life. You wanbt to show off the illustration but also need to let the text make it clear what you are looking at.

In the images below you'll note that I tried placing the text in various positions and rejected ach for variou reasons. Negative (black and white) art can be rendered awful by the wrong lettering.

I think it took two hours to sort out the final design.

The Werewolf of Hull (c)2020 T Hooper-Scharf

Mystery Hominid (c)2020 T Hooper-Scharf

Above: The combined image (c)2020 T Hooper-Scharf

I believe this is the one Linda chose (I was so busy writing that I never got to see the blog) (c)2020 T Hooper-Scharf

The wavy text and colour were meant to give a "creepy feel" -failed (c)2020 T Hooper-Scharf

Like a rolling in fog set low down. For me the colour and positioning did not work (c)2020 T Hooper-Scharf

This type of text might look good on the right colour background but on nregative art -no. Same applies to the next two attempts. (c)2020 T Hooper-Scharf

 (c)2020 T Hooper-Scharf

 (c)2020 T Hooper-Scharf

Whether it is for a blog header or a comic or book it can take a lot of thought. Of course, I could have drawn match-stick figures and slapped on a comic sans header but, well, I'm King of British comics for a reason....genius.

😝😝😝