Offer for publishing

I received an offer from a popular online- bookstore in Bulgaria about my major project comic book! Although I am very happy that someone had reached out already, and it is even a quite popular one, I have some second thoughts. The reason for that is because they are an online store, and one of their conditions is for the book to only be sold on their website and nowhere else. I really wanted to try and get it into actual book stores, where people can see it in real life.
For now, I will keep working on that, and keep the online bookstore offer as a plan B.

Samodiva is now on Behance!

I decided to add this project on my Behance page. 

I haven't shared too much about it with my followers on social media, so I think it would be interesting for them to see a little sneak-peek from it before it is officially out.

I am thinking of having it on some form of online platform, probably for free, and only sell the physical copies. I had received a huge support from my followers for my last project so I think I can offer them a free digital version of this comic book.

Portfolio/Website

I have decided to use my Behance page as both my porfolio and website. With all social media I don't feel the need yet to have a separate website, since it would contain the exact same content, and I don't really see the point in it. I really like Behance, not only because it looks professional, it gives you the option to include short bio and other social media links, but it also allows you to post a multiple images per post. For example, in my Garden Collection post, I have included a series of illustration that I have made, that have similar aesthetics and elements. Or, in the posting about my comic book, I have included a few pictures of the pages and the cover. That option on the platform allows everything to be kept nice and tidy.

I am also keeping my facebook page up to date, because there not only I can share my illustrations, but it is the best place to share articles and videos of interviews that other websites and media do with me. It is a nice platform to let people know about new project, or update them about current ones. It is also good for communication and answering questions.

Printing Samodiva

Since I finished colouring my pages, I put the text on them using InDesign and created the layout, still using InDesign.

I ordered 5 copies in english and 5 in bulgarian using the online service PrintMyBook.co who print and deliver books using a pdf file provided. What I got looks good, the covers are harder than the inside paper, and the colours are looking good- of course not the same as the original, and there are a few pages that are darker than what I wished they would be. There are a few issues with the prints- even tough I left 5 mm bleed, there are pages that are cut way too closely and there is small amount of either text or image missing. Which is not fatal but still bothers the eye. I noticed a few typos after the print, so there is a list of a couple of things to fix. I am still glad I made those test copies because they give me an idea of how the project actually looks like and what to change and/or fix to make it better. I would not have time to fix those things and order and receive new printing copies before the hand- in date, so I would present to ones I already have. I am still proud with what I have created and hope it would be appreciated even with its little flaws.

Illustrated Tote bags!

Tote bags are now here!! 🌻🌻 swipe right to check them out, there are 4 different choices for you! ☀️DM me if interested ☀️

A post shared by Clementine Petrova (@petrova.illustrations) on Aug 8, 2017 at 3:44am PDT

 As I am planning on opening my own etsy store, I made some more merch test using the same company as for the t- shirts of the samodiva, as I was very happy with their art printing. This time I made a few tote bags with my illustrations on them, and the prints are looking awesome! People are already showing interest in those, and asking about where they could buy them! For now, I have made 4 different ones, but they do make them on demand and it takes 2-4 days so I can print more whenever I want, with whichever illustration I want. I find this service very convenient and the quality is amazing.

Samodiva- merch tests

I was thinking about creating some merch to go with my major project book Samodiva. I found an online service that makes high quality prints on fabric and decided to give it a go. I used the samodiva illustration I made for the cover, and added a cheeky caption to it. I am quite content with the result because the print itself turned out great, looking exactly as the illustration. I was a bit worried as to how the watercolour image would turn out, but it is perfect. I would add those to my etsy store that I am planning on opening soon.

Samodiva- Cover image

I did a watercolour of the samodiva that I will use for the cover image. In this illustration I drew her the way she e supposed to look, not the way she looks in the book. The version of the character we see in the book is distressed, not in her full potential, not powerful. In this illustration I am showing her full potential and depicting her as the ideal vision of the samodiva character. I thought it would be interesting to suggest an alternative version of her, as in alternative way things could have happened. What if the forest in the story did not get destroyed, and the nature was still untouched? 

I would like to keep the cover looking pretty simple, yet classy. I would add tittle, maybe something else, but not a lot in order to keep it clean and simple.

Media presence

After my IndieGoGo Campaign, and my art show in Bulgaria, a lot of people heard about my little project. That caused some media interested and I already got 2 interviews on national TV, interview on the national radio, and a bunch of articles about my project on different websites, including a popular one called "Successful Young Bulgarians"
They are all in bulgarian, so I don't really know if there is much point of me sharing those on here.

Those are my interviews on national TV

A lot of websites and media wrote about my book or made an interview with me for their articles, also some general news newspapers. And the book is not even out yet! I am very excited about the future of BMC!

Quick update on BMC

My campaign has ended, and the results are amazing! It got funded on 506% which is something I did not expect at all. I am very happy with all of the support I received and extremely grateful to all the people that believed in me.

The plan now is:

1. Meeting with the printing company- I have got some pretty good offers and currently making some test- books.

2. Meeting with distributors, bookstore owners- to do with the test books.

3. Print the official batch books, minimum 300, depending on distributors. Hopefully, if we get a good distributor with a popular bookstore we might do a batch of a 1000.

It will be printed on high quality paper with hard covers. I am very excited to see the test books!

Art Show

I went back home, to Bulgaria, for a week, and it was such a busy week! I had my own art show, and the opening went great. A lot of people showed up, including journalists who took a few interviews from me. After that we even had the national TV show up to make a clip for the news! It was a very emotional day and I am very happy with how everything went.

In the exhibition I presented 13 prints, size A3, of some of the illustrations from the book I am currently publishing- Bulgarian Mythological Creatures.

This is the video from the news of the national television in Bulgaria!

Pages / Progress

 Uploading some progress of the colouring of the pages.

Watercolour seems to be painfully time consuming but I feel like it is worth it, compared to my digital attempt in colouring. It is taking double the time but I am much happier with the look of it, and I feel like it is more fitting to the story itself. Everything is slowly coming together.