Coverillustration for Dutch-Flemish Magazine
topic: Willem I & the colonies
 
 
 - some details - 
- content -
 
IN INTIMATE UNION
The united kingdom of the Netherlands celebrates his 200 years of existance.
The first king William I (William of Orange) tryed to create an imagened community especially in the overseas territories. 
The arts would ensure this band with numerous ceremonial portraits created for the dutch colonies.
 
 
 
- concept sketch -
- documentation -
Official Portrait William I / Historical images, people and setting dutch colonies Java, Indonesia
 
 
- Style inspiration - 
CHROMOLITHOGRAPHY
Chromolithography is an early method for making multi-colour prints.
Often used for school plates, rum and cigare labels. Perfect style for this subject.
Typically are the randomly placed dots (a hand-drawn process). 
Quite different from the photo-mechanical grids of contemporary offset print.
By trail & error I found a combination of filters in photoshop to do the trick.
Here you can see the proces: it's rather technical, for photoshop geeks...
- proces -
Line drawings & grey ink washes in different layers with the lightpad tracer.
{detail on paper}
 
- digital processing -
LINE: 1. increase contrast - 2. greyscale > bitmap (50% threshold) // Result: I have a sharp and strong line without having to ink it
GREYS: 1. filter > pixel > pointillize - 2. increase contrast - 3. second filter > filtergalery > stamp (this filter is very rough, but it works if you use it on poster size) // Result: I have nice random -like handrawn- dots

LINE: bitmap > back to greyscale > duotone (monotone brown)
GREYS: greyscale > duotone (monotone magenta)
FINALLY: bring the different layers together in a new CMYK document and Multiply Layers.
For the grain in the Yellow-Orange shape I used the same filters as on te magenta layer.
For the rest of the image I did the same proces and assembled the image. 
Also a interesting method: you can use filters on the different channels instead of on the layers.
Thanks for watching!