![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.paulkirkdesign.co.uk\/devblock\/ttaylor111\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/DanII-Chap8-1024x481-1.jpg\")
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As an author\/illustrator, people often ask me if I prefer writing or drawing. I usually reply that they are both very different, and that I just enjoy making the change when I\u2019ve been doing one of them for a long time. But the real truth is, I do<\/em> have a preference. And it has crept up over the years and taken me by surprise.<\/p>\n I have just finished the illustrations for Dan and the Caverns of Bone<\/em> (see above for a taste of what these look like). I found it difficult in ways I can hardly describe to those who haven\u2019t spent hours squinting close range at wayward ink lines and then transforming them into pixels in order to do it all again digitally. It\u2019s like a war fought between a man and his materials, waged on the scale of a postage stamp, no prisoners taken and the \u2018do not disturb\u2019 sign for free. There has got to be another way. Something that involves less squinting, at least.<\/p>\n And yet I do like the finished result. Somehow it\u2019s worth the cramps and eye strain. It\u2019s just that it hasn\u2019t escaped my notice that while writing the word \u2018elephant\u2019, say, is the work of a moment, drawing the damn thing takes an hour and forty roughs, plus coffee breaks. When a writer writes \u2018then the goblin army swarmed over the hill\u2019, the scene is set and he can move on. The illustrator, on the other hand, has to cancel his social life for a week.<\/p>\n Of course, I know writing isn\u2019t easy. It\u2019s not the word \u2018elephant\u2019 that counts, but what the elephant is doing and why.<\/em> But I hope no one begrudges me my moment of moan as I ease out of \u2018illustrator\u2019 gear for one project and shift into \u2018writer\u2019 for the next. And shift is the right word. Today I covered more story in words than I can do in a week of pictures. Though so far I\u2019ve managed to avoid throwing in a gratuitous herd of elephants, just because I can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As an author\/illustrator, people often ask me if I prefer writing or drawing. I usually reply that they are both very different, and that I just enjoy making the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,51,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-dan-and-the-dead","category-heartburn","category-illustrator"],"yoast_head":"\n