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The House of Daemon out now!

Started by maryanddavid, 09 July, 2015, 07:50:02 PM

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The Amstor Computer

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 11 July, 2015, 12:37:25 PM
Quite. I think it's easy to overlook just how much of a challenge something like this is — with plain linework, clean-up is relatively easy, because it's (pun intended) black and white. You either want this thing or that thing to appear on the page, or you don't. With all these lovely grey washes, something as simple as tweaking the levels or the contrast to bring up the whiteness of the paper risks buggering up the grey tones in the art completely...

Yep, that's the difficulty with this type of artwork. With something like, say, The Dracula File, I could be aggressive with levels etc. to get the whites/blacks to pop (though even there it still needed a degree of manual "repainting" to remove scruff and tidy up blacks that had badly faded) and you can get more aggressive with sharpening/resampling tools to get the linework looking nice and crisp, but with this it meant blowing the detail and subtlety in the greywash. 

Most pages therefore needed a gentle level adjustment to bring out as much of the white/blacks as possible, then there was nothing for it - if we wanted to preserve as much of the subtlety in the greywash as we could - but to go in at full magnification and "paint out" the areas of the page that were originally supposed to be white/black, preserving as much of the greywash as possible. I spent rather a long time staring at screen-size patterns of half-tone dots!  :)

What we do with these books will never quite match the quality of being able to work from fresh scans of the original artwork/film, but since that is long scattered to the winds we use what we have and work as hard as possible to present it in the best possible light. I've always been very impressed with the work Kathryn Symes does for Rebellion, and the approach and dedication she brings to her restoration jobs - often working from page scans too, where original film or art is damaged/missing - is the kind of target I like to aim for. Hopefully we hit it more often than not!

auxlen

purchased!!!! so looking forward to this!

Dark Jimbo

Gah! Wish I had some money spare for this - still bummed that I missed out on Tower King and Thirteenth Floor.
@jamesfeistdraws

Jim_Campbell

Dunno if this will make me sound like a git, but this is a genuine offer:

If any boarder wants to message me their postal address via the forum, I'll sub them the money for this and order them a copy. Pay me back when you're able. I've got a few quid to spare at the minute -- it'd be nice to do something positive for fellow forum members.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Dark Jimbo

Jim, you're a gent and a scholar!
@jamesfeistdraws

Colin YNWA


Grey M@a

Just ordered a copy for myself, heard of this and its always been highly recommended, never actually read this myself so looking forward to a first time read with this one.

maryanddavid

Nice on Jim!  Jimbo, I am hoping to do a third 13th Floor, and reprint the first two as well. If it happens you will hear of it!

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: maryanddavid on 14 July, 2015, 10:41:55 PM
Jimbo, I am hoping to do a third 13th Floor, and reprint the first two as well. If it happens you will hear of it!

Happy dance!
@jamesfeistdraws

robert_ellis

Love that the soldiers helmet has been added to complete the image on the top right. Having scanned & retouched New Eagles myself I can fully appreciate Hibernia's skill & love. Monster next?

Prodigal2

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 11 July, 2015, 09:16:13 PM
Dunno if this will make me sound like a git, but this is a genuine offer:

If any boarder wants to message me their postal address via the forum, I'll sub them the money for this and order them a copy. Pay me back when you're able. I've got a few quid to spare at the minute -- it'd be nice to do something positive for fellow forum members.

Cheers

Jim

Thankfully I don't need to avail of this but that's a very beautiful thing Jim. Seriously that's the kind of move that brightens up a day.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Prodigal2 on 15 July, 2015, 10:48:06 AM
Thankfully I don't need to avail of this but that's a very beautiful thing Jim. Seriously that's the kind of move that brightens up a day.

Thanks for the kind words. The lovely Hibernia folks deserve every penny they can get for their efforts, and I'd rather a forum member who'll really appreciate the book got a copy now that was ordered direct from them, rather than pay over the odds to someone on eBay down the line. Win-win, as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Richmond Clements

Got a copy through the door this morning (Thanks David!). Just had a quick flick through, and by grud it is amazing quality.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Richmond Clements on 15 July, 2015, 11:24:48 AM
Got a copy through the door this morning (Thanks David!). Just had a quick flick through, and by grud it is amazing quality.

—Checks door mat—

Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

The Amstor Computer

Quote from: robert_ellis on 15 July, 2015, 10:13:19 AM
Love that the soldiers helmet has been added to complete the image on the top right. Having scanned & retouched New Eagles myself I can fully appreciate Hibernia's skill & love. Monster next?

Cheers! It was a bit of extra work adding back in details and - crucially - making them fit with what I felt Ortiz would have drawn beneath Eagle logos, black bars etc. and if it all works as intended it's only readers like yourself who will ever notice, but that's what I was aiming for. I think I've spotted your vids on YouTube too - lovely work on those collected editions!

Glad you like it, Richmond  :) Hopefully everyone else will too!