Hi, I consider investing in a printer.
Here is my needs:

1. Print light sketches on watercolor paper (so I can skip transfer sketch to watercolor process).
2. Print my drawings + paintings for art market sales (a very small run to start with. This is one thing I try to establish this year).

I am considering Epson p600. My only concern is that it may end up costing too much to maintain (paper, ink, and have to print often to prevent clogging). I wonder if anyone owns or had a P600 before, and would like to share the experience of owning it. I also have some specific questions:

1. How much does it cost approximately to print an A3 sized image with fine art paper? (the local Giclee printing shop is expensive, it cost me more than 30usd to get an A3 fine art print)
2. How often do you need to print in order to keep the printer unclogged?

@peteolczyk I find keywords are very helpful. With the book I did just now, I wrote down some keywords for each poem. I wrote down a list of nouns (people, animals, objects that appears in the poem, or things I thought of when reading the poem). Then I wrote down some adjectives for each poem, and the adjectives are the mood. I went back to them all the time, especially the adjectives.

The early color comp really helped me. My process is roughly like this right now:

1. Research and thumbnails
2. Rough sketch
3. Color comp
4. Detailed line drawing (I do not do very detailed line drawing anymore since a lot fo my finals are not with visible lines. But I typically draw the image once more after the color comp, to define a bit more the shapes).
5. Painting and details.

For this project, roughly 1-3 steps takes up 40% of the time, and 4-5 steps take 60%. For my personal piece, I do not keep track the time so much, so it is hard to say. But this year, I think I want to spend more time in the 1-3 steps, as much as time allows.

Another thing I realize during the last couple of months is that an illustration is very often so much better if you do not try to do it in one go. The time in between/the time you are not working on the piece, but doing something completely different is what makes the illustration better. I think this is probably one of the reasons why your personal piece is always better than the client works, due to the schedule.

@Tom-Shannon is Will a mountain? This is so fun. Love it. I wish I can see this on the cover of the New Yorker for one of their winter holiday session issues.

@peteolczyk thank you. you are always so supportive

@peteolczyk There is a lot in this image I love. It is very interesting to look at. The composition is interesting, the snow scene is beautiful. The forest reminds me Lord of the rings. But there is something not cohesive in this image. I am not quite sure what is the image really about: it is about friends out for an adventure (friendship, helping each other), or it is about the creature Spring left a mysterious trail (if it is the creature Spring's track, wouldn't the forest folks have seen it every year? why would it be a surprise for them?).

I think maybe it would help to write down a one-sentence pitch for the story, and 1-2 keywords for what the mood of the image should be, and use these to guide your decisions on composition, character design, and color choices. I found it very useful to use this approach when designing the image, especially in the thumbnail stage, but also when deciding the details.

I found color study step is one of the most difficult steps in the process. What I found it easier for me is do color comp as early as possible during the process. I would do color comps over a very rough sketch( just slightly more detailed than a less badly-drawned thumbnail). In this way, I can iterate quicker, if something is not working, I can scrap it before I invest time in drawing details.

@theprairiefox thank you. Very interesting. I will work on that.

Thank you so much for the support along the way. I delivered all the final work today. Everything is confirmed by the editor. So I have done my first book.

@eriberart I am starting to prepare for the Bologna book fair from this week as well. It would be lovely to meet you at the fair.

I love the mood of this image, very intriguing.
I notice the image seems to be equally divided with a line in the middle, which made the image look less dynamic. I am not entirely sure if that is intentional.

@carolinedrawing Thank you so much for the feedback. You are spot on. I think I will work on your suggestions before handing in the artwork today.