Backgrounds (cont'd)

The softer the pencil lead, the darker it marks.

Eric sometimes likes to make a model of what he is trying to draw. Eric built a model of the tomb for Zoom Upstream, complete with all the Egyptian statues he wanted in it. He was able to move all the pieces around and arrange them in different ways. This helped him to decide how the tomb should look inside. Eric does lots of drawings. Many of these drawings are of the statues that will be in the tomb.

Model of the tomb Copyright/Source

The statues are carefully drawn on graph paper so that Eric can get the proportions just right and make sure that the left side of the statue is exactly like the right side. These drawings will help him when it comes time to draw the statues in different sizes.

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When Eric made a mistake with the head of the statue, he added a piece of a new drawing to cover it. That way he didn't have to draw the whole statue over again!

All the statues are based on pictures that Eric collected of real Egyptian statues. Copyright/Source

The model helps him to play with the light and shadows in the tomb, to get them just right. He can also see the tomb from different angles. Once he knows how the tomb should look, he takes photos of the model and uses them to make a sketch.

First Eric takes a photo of his tomb model at the angle he wants.	Copyright/Source
Then he places a layer of tracing paper on top so that he can draw Zoom and the objects in the tomb.	Copyright/Source
Eric can make different drawings until he gets it the way he wants it, and he doesn't have to keep drawing the tomb each time.	Copyright/Source

Eric does sketches to figure out the angle he wants in his drawing and the correct perspective.

Copyright/Source	Eric plans out the correct perspective for Maria's walled garden. This drawing became the middle layer of another sketch where Eric added details.
Copyright/Source	Details without the wall
Copyright/Source	Details with the wall
Copyright/Source	Final drawing

When Eric is transferring his sketches onto tracing paper, he uses a 4H pencil. This kind of lead makes a hard, crisp line. Perfect for tracing!

Eric also uses cutouts of his characters, such as Zoom, Maria and Uncle Roy so that he can move them around on his backgrounds like a puppet show. He plays around with the cutout characters until he finds exactly the right spot for them in each picture.

This background is used as a base for the next drawing.	Copyright/Source
Copyright/Source	Eric has positioned the characters exactly where he wants them and has taped the cutouts to the tracing paper. This is where they will stay in the final illustration.

Once Eric decides on the best spot, he tapes the cutouts onto the paper. All the layers can then be photocopied so that he can trace the final outline.

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This outline sketch is like a page from a colouring book.  Eric will make a copy of this page and add shading and further details to create the final illustration.

When the backgrounds and characters are just right, Eric traces the outline onto good paper and shades the drawing. This shading can take a long time, up to 12 hours a day. He uses LOTS of pencils at this stage. This last drawing will be the one used in the printed book.

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The final illustration for this page of the book has all the beautiful shading that takes Eric so much time and so many pencils!

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