Color and Texture

So after a bit of experimenting I have arrived at a stylistic conclusion, which I’m actually pretty stoked about.

Little Dave 2.0

I got off to a rough start initially with the whole watercolor thing because many of the examples and tutorials I found were working from a scan of an actual photograph. Or the illustration was totally original but the artists technique was so far removed from the look I was trying to achieve it just left me frustrated. All in all this little adventure was a highly beneficial learning experience. I ended up taking a little of what I learned from various other styles and mashed it with a few of my own preferences. I went to the ‘”Effects” menu in illustrator after having a bit of trouble trying to communicate color entirely by using brush strokes, fills or layering transparent polygons. What resulted was the use of an effect called “Texturizer” employing the “Canvas” setting which is the default for this effect. I then went back to my Vectips brushes to add shadows and highlights. Lastly I used the layered polygon technique to give dimension the brown carpet Little Dave is standing on. I’m still perfecting my technique but overall I’m pleased with the results of this endeavor. I don’t think I’ll be needing to do any painting by hand!

Water Color Techniques

Little Dave is the first character I’m going to introduce in my children’s series.

Meet Little Dave!

My initial plan was to draw everything by hand, watercolor each illustration and then scan and color correct using adobe photoshop or illustrator. However, while I may be decent with a pencil my illustrations lack the consistency needed for franchise branding and recognize-ability (after all I went to school for Marketing not graphic design, illustration or animation). As a result I’m doing all the illustrations in illustrator and learning to apply watercolor techniques in illustrator.

Here are two tutorials I’ve found that look most promising. This one from designinstruct.com is highly comprehensive. Meanwhile if you’re already fairly certain of what your doing this free brush library from vectips.com is also useful.

How Do You Protect A Book or Series Title?

After reading this entry on the US Patent and Trademark Office website I discovered that you cannot Trademark the title of a single book or single work. You can however trademark the name of a series, which is good to know since I’m in the process of writing a children’s series! Also according to this page from the USPTO you are not required to register the mark with the USPTO.

“You can establish rights in a mark based on use of the mark in commerce, without a registration… If you claim rights to use a mark, you may use the “TM” (trademark) or “SM” (service mark) designation to alert the public to your claim of ownership of the mark, regardless of whether you have filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). However, you may only use the federal registration symbol “®” after the USPTO actually registers a mark, and not while an application is pending.”

Now for the really important question… How much does federal trademark registration cost?  If you register without the costly assistance of an attorney it will be $325 to file electronically.

While a literary work can be copyrighted for about $45 the same is not true for a book title-book titles cannot be copyrighted. So the best thing to do for someone like myself who is building a brand is to trademark. Unfortunately you cannot claim a trademark until it is being used in commerce. So, if you’re not quite ready to go to market with your product it’s best to keep your intellectual property to yourself.

Welcome to K. O| Land!

Hello Readers, Writers and the like!

My name is Krystena and I want to share my self publishing adventures with you! I’ll be posting images from my personal illustration process along with things I learn along the way about the business of self publishing- from highly recommended printing resources, to marketing and distribution strategy.

Thanks for visiting me!

K. O|