HP Completed Book

**EDIT**

After watching some special features on one of the Potter movies, I found I had a couple other people I wanted to thank for “introducing me to Harry”. See, while I love the books and strive to make my illustrations as faithful to them as possible, I do enjoy the movies. I realize they can’t be perfect representations of the books for multiple reasons. But I actually didn’t even read the first book until close to the time the third movie was coming out. Before that it was just the movies for me. And while I do enjoy them all to some extent, I feel the first two movies were the closest representations to the books, and after watching the special features on said movie’s disks I realize it was Chris Columbus and Davis Heyman who appreciated the source material in the same way I do. Now they did have the limitations that prevented them from making literal adaptations of the books, but they stayed as true as possible, and it’s because of their passion for the books, that the rest of the movies were able to be as close as they were. So I decided something: The copies I got back from Scholastic and Bloomsbury are going to them. Mr. Columbus is getting the one originally sent to Scholastic (the only one of the lot that uses “Sorcerer’s Stone” in the title, being american and all) and the other originally sent to Bloomsbury will go to Mr.Heyman. So far I was only able to afford sending Mr.Columbus’ copy - I haven’t heard back from him (not that he has to responde) and eventually I’ll send off Mr.Heyman’s copy.

After finishing the illustrations for the first book it wasn’t enough for me to just have them. I wanted to see them in a book. So after a little research and studying I learned how to do book binding on my own. I formatted everything on the computer, printed it on my home printer, had them cut to size and then everything else I did by hand. Here is how it turned out.

In the slip case...

... and out.

I made four copies of the book. I’d originally intended to make five and even said there were five inside the books themselves, but as I started working, funding dictated I couldn’t do the fifth.

Obviously I made one for myself; that was the whole point to making them to begin with. The other three I sent out with different purposes....

The first was a copy for J.K.Rowling herself. I simply wanted to say “thank you” to her for writing such an amazing story and all that it did for me. Unfortunately, the book never made it past “her people”. They sent the book back to me with a very nice letter explaining J.K.R. is given too many gifts and so she doesn’t accept them anymore. I’ll admit I’m a tad disappointed, I kind of thought they’d realize what I’d made was a bit more than just a tin of cookies and a handmade card. The whole book was a labor of love. While she could throw the physical book away for all I care, I just wanted to let Ms.Rowling know about it, about my illustrations inspired by her story and everything she’s done for me. Fortunately they returned the book to me, so I’ll get another chance to give it to J.K.R. but with the second book as well.

But, if she were ever to magically (hehehe, no pun intended) find her way to this webpage. Ms.Rowling, if you’re reading this:

Thank you, thank you, and thank you!!! Truly, I can not thank you enough for what you’ve done for my imagination and more so, my art!

And if you ever want your copy of the book I made for you, let me know.

The second and third books I sent to Bloomsbury and Scholastic; the British and American publishers of the Potter series, with a proposal for publishing illustrated editions of the books. I didn’t have high hopes that either would accept; and they didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, as a fan of the series I think the world is ready for illustrated editions, even if they weren’t done by me. But alas, they also sent back the books.

Anyway, here are more pictures of the finished book...

Here’s the actual book itself. I had to have the dust jacket cover printed at a Kinkos, due to its dimensions and I wanted it to have a better quality than I could do on my home printer. I think it turned out great.

On the back side of all the books there’ll be a “creative cut”. The first book has Neville Longbottom’s toad Trevor making an escape and it (hopefully) gives the illusion he’s pulling the corner of the paper back. The second book will feature the Cornish Pixies ripping their way through the paper.

On the inside of the front cover I put in a little “bonus” illustration. I have something very similar to it by one of my favorite artists, Alex Ross. I loved the idea so much, I did it myself... and established yet another part of the Potter Project!

While the table of contents is pretty much as it appears in the published versions, fear not to those who might think I’ve broken copy right laws. All the “real” text of the book is just Lorum Ipsum text... or “place holding” text. Basically, it’s a bunch of latin-ish gibberish to look like there’s text there. Like the table of contents there are a handful of times actual text is used to create a sense of continuity. But I did my best to respect copyright.

Moving on to the “meat” of the book....

Here are some shots of the interiors featuring a few of the vignette drawings, how the coloured illustrations turned out including the fold out page.

And that’s it really. I’ll add more as I complete the other books.