Spreads from the book

Timeline

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SPRING 2017

I suddenly got the idea for a book with a predator as its main focus on a car ride home from visiting my boyfriends parents. I grabbed my sketchbook and started thumb-nailing pages already then to get my idea down on paper before it dissapeared. Shortly after this I sketched my main character, no official name yet, but the design just wasn’t working so I left the idea for a 7 months. You can see those first designs in a video further down this timeline. At this point the project was called “Blackbird”

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13TH OF JANUARY 2018

The first time I mention my project on YouTube along with the first time showing my face! I had started developing the story more and the character. I count this as the official start of the project! I believe it was the Christmas 2017 where I decided that I wanted my goal to be storytelling, books and personal projects over any freelance concept art work. I redesigned Eva, finally gave her a name, and even though she did change a bit more later I actually prefer this version of her now after the book is finished!

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20TH OF JANUARY 2018

I keep working on the illustrations for the book, but something feels off. This was my first time working on such a big project and I had a lot of expectations for it and it was making me nervous! It turned into a slight burnout in my next vlog but also prompted me to change the style a bit so that it felt much more comfortable to draw the pages!

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9TH OF FEBRUARY 2018

The burnout / art block slowly dissapeared with this illustration! I let myself be a lot looser with the art and I still very much enjoy this drawing and I occasionally use it for promotion.

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25TH OF FEBRUARY 2018

I keep aiming too “high” with the style of the project! On one hand I did the nice illustration that you saw in the previous timeline post the week before, but then attempting to design and paint the house I felt scared again and could feel another burnout approaching.

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11TH OF MAY 2018

After attempting and feeling like I failed at that last big illustration of the house (looking back I think it was quite good haha) I took a few months break from the project. Something just felt off and I could not put my finger on it. During these few months I also decided to quit my full-time job as a concept artist to do freelance and YouTube full-time. After my last day and with my first day as fully free I felt ready to tackle Greylegs again! I redesigned Eva to have a bit more character and gave her the role of a warrior! So no longer only a normal child in a garden. And she took on a bit of a transformation.

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15TH OF JUNE 2018

Full steam ahead with Greylegs! My only freelance client that I had secured for the end of my full-time job stopped giving me work so I was left without anything to do and all my time to myself… and I decided there and then to do a Kickstarter to fund the printing of Greylegs! This also gave me a deadline, which is a great motivator to finish something.

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22ND OF JULY 2018

This week I jumped right into the lineart for the story! I decided to do all the lines by hand and colour it digitally. I did end up painting a lot over the traditional lifework in the colouring stages though… oops?

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29TH OF JUNE

More planning for the book, how many pages, layout and the cover art!

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6TH OF JULY 2018

All the linework is done so I dive headfirst into the colouring of the pages! I think I coloured half of them before I started the Kickstarter. There are lots of nice process videos in this weeks vlog!

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13TH OF JULY 2018

Super close to the Kickstarter launch! Planning rewards and setting it up. At this point I realised that without any freelance work coming my way I needed to get the Kickstarter up and running sooner rather than later so my savings wouldn’t dry up.

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15TH OF JULY 2018

Kickstarter campaign launch! Here is the trailer video and you can find the campaign page exactly how it was in 2018 HERE

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15TH OF JULY - 15TH OF AUGUST 2018

The Kickstarter launch went amazing! The goal was only £500 and we soon hit the stretch goal for Spot UV coating on the front cover. I also had to come up with some fancy new stretch goals like pins, stickers and prints! Here is a cool graph to show how the campaign went overtime.

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AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2018

A lot of preparing for printing, finishing colouring pages, sending extra stretch goals and rewards off to print. Just a lot of behind the scenes work that I don’t really have a lot to show from!

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17TH OF OCTOBER 2018

The books arrive! And I start shipping all the rewards out as soon as possible. I am very happy that I did vlog a lot of the packing and shipping process so here is the video about all that!

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SEPTEMBER 2018

I shipped out all the books to all the backers and the project was complete! I did order an excess of 1500 copies and I to this day (Feb 2020) still have around 1000 left. Luckily for me soft cover books don’t take much space and it means I can continue to sell the book online on Amazon to anyone who is interested.

THE START OF A LOT MORE PROJECTS

I see Greylegs as the start of my interest of making stories and books. There is something immensely satisfying about finishing a project, even if it’s not printed and even if it’s not as you imagines. Looking back at it one and a half year later I am just so happy I did it. I hope it will lead to many more projects in the future!

If you would like to support those projects, see early behind the scenes work and sketches and other fun rewards, please consider supporting me on Patreon!

DINA'S PATREON

Thank you for reading/scrolling through this timeline of Greylegs!

- Dina Norlund