Gu Weijing returned home, closed the bedroom door, and opened the work email he had left on the Fiverr page.
He browsed for a moment,
I found the cooperation invitation that Scholastic mentioned on Twitter.
“Dear Ms. Detective Cat Artist:
Scholastic Group has always been committed to cooperating with outstanding artists from all over the world to provide bright new stars in the illustration industry with opportunities to express themselves... We are honored to invite you to participate in the group's "Little Prince" project.
Now, we officially provide you with a trial manuscript contract. (Specific relevant details are attached in the attachment at the end of the article.)
If you are willing to accept our invitation, please follow the requirements and send the prepared sample to the email of the project assistant no later than 5pm London time this Sunday. Failure to do so will be deemed as automatic abandonment of the contract.
If you have any questions or issues regarding the contract, please contact the legal consultation office of the group...
——Wish you good luck, Scholastic Group's "Little Prince" project team. "
Gu Weijing spent a few minutes simply scanning the content of the email.
This is an invitation from a publishing house to submit a manuscript.
The trial draft contract is not considered a formal commission. It is more of a final interview for the employer to test the artist's ability after the employer has a preliminary intention to cooperate with the artist before signing a large order.
For example, a news weekly may have about fifty illustrations, and the newspaper will use one page as a trial draft before the first cooperation.
Not all illustrators are willing to do trial drafts.
Rumor has it that some employers in the industry will defraud artists out of their work for free in the name of trial drafts.
But with a publishing giant, the risk of being scammed is very small.
Not only that,
It is an honor in itself to get an invitation from Scholastic Group to review the manuscript.
The manuscript invitation offer in the mailbox is obviously much more formal than the grass-roots team-style cooperation model that Gu Weijing used to take orders on the Internet.
Even if it was just a trial draft, the publisher still provided a dozens-page contract and a more detailed mission statement.
He does not have an agent yet, so these documents need to be handled by Gu Weijing personally.
Gu Weijing clicked on several files attached at the bottom of the email.
The first is two independent draft style books and painting format books.
The style book stipulates the employer's requirements for the painter's painting style, whether the painting should be thick or flat, whether the line drawing should be colored, whether it should be a flat style or a forest style, etc.
The format book stipulates the size of the manuscript. If it is electronic painting, it stipulates the printing resolution and pixel size required for the original electronic album.
These two documents are the basis for serious contract projects in the illustration industry.
Some employers, who are more troublesome, even have strict agreements on the ordering of scene layers in electronic drawings and the types of brushes used by painters.
It would take a long time just to use the computer to change the complicated formats required by Party A.
"This... is very tolerant."
Gu Weijing nodded.
Ms. Sakai Katsuko’s guess was correct. Judging from the requirements of this document, the publishing house did regard herself as a first-line illustrator.
industry,
The more high-end the project, the less red tape constraints employers often give artists.
It is more about giving a conceptual macro-requirement, while in terms of specific painting methods, it is willing to give well-known painters greater creative freedom.
The "Little Prince" project team only requires that the sample manuscript must be in color, and the print resolution after scanning must be above 400PPI (pixel unit density). There are no strict requirements on the specific painting method.
The last document is the instruction letter.
The instruction book is a summary of the content of the illustration request, which is the specific content that the publisher wants you to draw.
This PDF is not long, only two short sentences.
[Content of the trial drawing: Take Section 8 of "The Little Prince" - "On the Little Prince's planet, there used to be some simple flowers growing. These flowers had only one layer of petals, took up no space, and did not hinder anyone. They will bloom in the grass one morning, and then quietly wither by night." Create an illustration for the theme. 】
[Requirements: The colors are dreamy, blurry, warm, with enough sense of space and layering, in line with the author Saint-Exupéry's true feelings, with a fairy tale temperament, and enough impact on children. 】
"Dream, blur, warmth..."
Gu Weijing stared at the assignment in the mailbox for a moment.
"A fairy tale contract!" He was pleasantly surprised.
Fairy tale illustrations were originally the type of tasks Gu Weijing hoped to receive after getting Hua Dao Hua.
Knife painting is not as good at carving fine details as brush painting, but it has an inherent advantage in expressing the blurred colors of children's fairy tales.
It’s like milk meets Oreos, butter meets a butter knife.
The painting method of Hua Daohua and the text of "The Little Prince", which requires a sense of space and has a natural fantasy fairy tale temperament, are a perfect match.
After all,
The original origin of Hua Dao Painting comes from the painter's unremitting pursuit of space and beautiful colors.
The painting style of Hua Dao Hua is very similar to the ethereal and otherworldly atmosphere pursued by the aesthetic school of the 19th century.
The slogan pursued by the aestheticist school of painting is originally derived from the creed in Wilde's fairy tales - the real world is the enemy of art, and all art arises from innocence.
Coincidentally,
Although two centuries ago, when aestheticism was just born, knife painting could not be regarded as an independent painting style.
But those representatives of aestheticism, whether it is Edward Jones or James Whistler, like to use a large number of oil painting knives in their painting processes.
Whistler, the great American national treasure painter, is considered to be one of the founders of the oil painting knife method.
Gu Weijing liked this contract very much.
Not only was the other party's request completely covered by his legendary knife-drawing skills, what's more, the invitation for this trial manuscript came from the youth publishing giant Scholastic Group.
This kind of large publishing group is almost the favorite partner of illustrators.
Negative problems such as long payment collection cycles, low sales revenue, and lack of book marketing channels for ordinary small publishing houses were not problems at all before Scholastic.
Not only is the salary generous, but every additional book sold is a silent advertisement for the illustrator.
Gu Weijing was really surprised as if he had been hit by a pie falling from the sky.
He pondered for a moment, but did not start drawing hastily immediately. Instead, he bought an old version of "The Little Prince" on Amazon and quickly read it from beginning to end.
Drawing illustrations for "The Little Prince" itself does not place high demands on illustrators.
There is no need to worry about Wei Jing’s own extra creativity.
Because when Saint-Exupery was writing this book, he had already drawn hundreds of illustrations for this book, even to the point where each page had an independent illustration.
In the past, many classic versions of "The Little Prince" were all illustrated with the original author's own graffiti.
The Scholastic Group hesitated again and again before making the decision to update the illustrations and illustrations by the original authors.
This decision was somewhat of a last resort.
First of all, Saint-Exupery himself was not a professional painter. The level of these illustrations was very average, and some were just amateur-level drafts.
But the more important reason is that they can't get the illustration copyright of the original Little Prince.
This is a very embarrassing thing.
Scholastic's main competitor in North America, the original copyright holder of "The Little Prince", Townsend Mann Publishing Group, successfully relied on complex legal maneuvers and lobbying activities to register the illustration image of The Little Prince separately in the United States as an independent company. "Cartoon characters" outside the text.
In North America, the copyright protection period for cartoon illustrations is 95 years after the death of the author.
To put it more bluntly,
Although the text of "The Little Prince" has entered the realm of public books, its original illustrations are still in the hands of competitors and they cannot use them.
Otherwise, hire a new illustrator,
Otherwise, only white text will be published.
There is no third option.
In the publishing industry, it is one of the common operations of publishing companies to use familiar classic illustrations as a moat for book copyrights.
In addition to "The Little Prince", such as the series of illustrations created by master illustrator Shepard for "The Wind in the Willows", etc., this is the case.
Even if publishing companies in non-competitive Asian countries want to introduce them to the domestic market, the price quoted for the copyright of the illustrations themselves will be much higher than the price quoted for the text itself.
even so,
In the draft requirements, Scholastic also required the painter to use the tone of Saint-Exupéry's own illustrations as a model.
But then again,
This relieved Gu Weijing's creative burden. With Saint-Exupéry's original rough design, he only needed to draw his own painting based on this blueprint.
Gu Weijing carefully scanned the original illustrations of "The Little Prince" and occasionally used an identification technique.
From a professional artistic perspective, there is nothing surprising about these illustrations, but the illustrations written by the original author will always be the version most closely linked to the article.
After browsing it from beginning to end, Gu Weijing had an idea of the general composition of the picture.
He turned off the computer, came to the easel, stretched the canvas, mixed some paint with a painting knife, and gently drew the first twisted arc on the canvas.
Just ten seconds,
A single layer of rose petals grew on the screen, then the second, and the third. Green shade and grass spread around the flower, and then the uneven land...
If there were any onlookers watching Gu Weijing's painting movements at this time, he would definitely open his mouth in surprise.
It's so fast!
Like some kind of magic,
In just a few minutes, a broad outline of grass with flowers in bloom appeared on the canvas.
Gu Weijing's movements were smooth and smooth without any trace of hesitation.
He didn't even need any additional color mixing. With a gentle wrist, he used the oil painting knife to gently pick and stroke on the palette. The paint was mixed together like thick cream, and then he slapped it on the canvas.
The difficulty of painting with a knife lies in control. Even the smallest pear-shaped knife has a contact surface with the canvas itself that is several times that of a normal paintbrush when applying paint.
Controlling the drawing knife is a great science, which requires not only technique but also feeling.
The paint knife cannot be adjusted when applying paint.
If your hands are shaking or you hesitate when "cutting", the paint will be squeezed by uneven force and show ripples like water waves.
The important thing is to be neat and tidy.
If someone looks like an old lady crossing the road when painting with an oil painting knife, hesitating and trembling and not daring to use the knife, then the final effect of the painting will definitely not be very good.
Almost all masters who are good at painting knife skills are very fast when painting with an oil painting knife.
It is common for a traditional oil painting to take two to three weeks, or even a month or two.
But the time for drawing with a knife is basically measured in hours or even minutes.
But Gu Weijing's performance was no longer fast in the ordinary sense. It was as if he was using magic to conjure a painting out of thin air.
This is the charm of legendary skills,
His familiarity with the oil painting knife has even exceeded the level of ordinary practice making perfect.
The painting knife is an extra extension of his arm,
Many times, Gu Weijing doesn't even need to think about which step he has reached. He just follows his feelings, and his thoughts will quickly appear on paper.
finally,
Gu Weijing stopped.
He stared at the scene in front of him. Rose-colored flowers bloomed on the green grass, and the uneven land like the moon spread around.
Overall, it looks like a quite mature Hua Dao painting, with a desolate and dreamy feeling, bright and vivid.
"not enough."
Gu Weijing thought deeply, and he felt that there was something missing in this painting.
Missing...that fairy tale quality that can catch people's attention.
He stared at the picture for a moment, then took a deep breath, and expressionlessly began to scrape away the paint on the canvas with a straight-edged metal oil painting knife.
madman!
In the eyes of any knowledgeable painter, Gu Weijing's actions are quite unreasonable, and they even think that he is destroying this work in a frantic manner.
The oil painting knife scrapes off the paint on the canvas or drawing board. In addition to being used to correct the picture, this behavior is indeed a painting technique.
After the paint is scraped off, a layer of paint is formed that is extruded and trapped in the texture of the pressed canvas, creating a unique color expression of blurred ghosting, which can be used to increase the surface texture of the painting.
But this method has always been used to deal with the thin layer of paint applied by the brush.
The oil painting knife painting method is a very typical thick coating method.
Gu Weijing's painting method of wide opening and closing, the layers of paint on the canvas are like different flavors of cream on a cake, covering them together, several millimeters thick.
With such a squeeze, the upper and lower layers of paint are messy and twisted together, and the picture can easily become dirty and unreadable.
Gu Weijing was not crazy, he did it intentionally.
This is the extraordinary control of the legendary painting method that gives him courage.
He is confident that he can use the oil painting knife as an external force, further squeezing to force the different layers of paint to gradually mix under his control.
This is just like a chain reaction,
Controlled pigment extrusion and mixing can produce a hazy and misty fusion effect under the action of external force.
The uncontrollable reaction will be like an atomic bomb, blowing the screen to pieces.
The difference between success and failure is the almost imperceptible difference in the strength and angle of the oil painting knife.
Gu Weijing has confidence in himself and his legendary painting skills.
He mixed different paints with each other bit by bit, and finally at a certain moment, the entire painting formed a thin and transparent feeling.
The lower pigments and upper pigments are cleverly combined together to create a mixed color effect.
The light is dense,
Just like a fairy tale.
(End of chapter)
