After making some designs for the final pages I made a dummy book. I then finished off the final pages. I used watercolours to paint the main features of the pages, I then digitally added the backgrounds. I created the font from my own handwriting, I think this works as it isn’t too messy but it looks more personal than a normal font.
The first page is made up of documents and letters that my Grandfather brought back with him from his time as a prisoner of war. I also included a photograph of him and another of him and some other soldiers.
I am fairly happy with how the pages turned out however there is still many changes that I would make to them. I think that I need to experiment more with how the text is placed on the images as it takes up quite a lot of space and detracts from the images a bit. I also need to improve the quality of some of the pages, I could do this by re-scanning some of the artwork ignorer to make it less blurry. I also need to improve the way that I cut out my images and apply them to flat colour backgrounds. One suggestion from my tutor was to use gouache, the same colour as the background, and apply it around the parts of the image that I wish to cut out, creating a smoother transition between the digital aspects and the watercolour parts. I will try this technique to improve my images. I also went to experiment more with the content of some of the pages, for example the third page, with the image of the boat sinking, I think that an image where the main character can clearly be seen climbing across a rope to the ship would be more effective and visually interesting. I would also like to include more textures from real items in the pages like the wooden box on the fifth page and the blindfold on the eleventh. I could paint on bits of the documents and letters and I have some Japanese fans that I could also incorporate.
I also made a cover for my book using images from the existing pages. 
Emily Hilditch Illustration 