The Frog Prince continued

The next three pages of the bedtime book. Working in this style has been really interesting for me. At first, it was maddening. I want shadows! I want dimension! I want perspective! But now that I'm half a dozen in, I'm getting into it. Especially as it's computer art, I can play with the composition more. I don't even bother to scan in sketches to draw from. I make each element, and then move them around, even more easily than if I'd used my sketchbook. Granted, for me at least, composing a picture in this way would only work with something rendered in this style. But it gives me a chance to make the compositions more creative, more so than if I had tried to paint it.

The other thing I've noticed helps with composition is saving it for the blog. As an icon, it's really small, so things like the composition, or flaws therein, stand out even more (in traditional art, I have to get this same effect by walking across the room from the painting, so I can see it at a distance).

This is working for my painting as well – since I've been scanning in the steps of the Hansel and Gretel piece, I get to see it in the same way. Ordinarily, it's would be too bothersome to scan in steps of a painting to check it out, but since I'm doing so anyway for the blog, it's just as helpful. In particular, when I posted the last version, I could see that the top leaf line of the trees is almost a straight line. I'll be adding more layers of foliage beneath it when I go back to working on it, but I'd never have noticed if I hadn't seen it in blog icon form.

Another (hopefully brief) Interlude

Every night, Arianna likes me to read Byron Barton's The Three Bears to her, and it's easy to see why. It's colorful. It's pithy. And it has enough repetition for a 2-year old to follow along and say it with me while I'm reading it. So we do so. Every. Single. Night.

Notwithstanding, it is a fun book, and my only complaint is that there aren't more fairy tale books like it. Barton has other books, but they're mainly cars, trucks, and dinosaurs. But I was wishing that there were more story books like that one.

And then I thought, I can fix that.

So here are the first three pages of my take, toddler-art style, on the Frog Prince, one of my favorites as a child:






It'll end up being a 24-page book in the end, at least in this version. If I tried to take it to a publisher, it would probably have to be 32 pages, but I'm comfortable with the length now. After all, it is to help put a 2-year old to sleep – no need to write a novel.

Back into the Woods

Progress! Nowhere near finished, of course, but a far cry from a doodle on lined notebook paper.

I've always pictured Hansel and Gretel being turned out of the house in Autumn. It seems like a particularly nasty time to abandon someone. Not a flat out death sentence like the middle of winter, true, but in late fall, after harvest time, when they have a tantalizing hope of finding food but they most likely can't or the stepmother wouldn't have turned them out of the house to begin with. Abandoned just at the right time to let them starve first and then have the cold finish them off.

Clearly I have strong opinions about how bad the stepmother is in this story.

But it does make for a nice fall palette in the painting.

We interrupt Hansel and Gretel...

...for a quick contest entry. The New Yorker just recently wrapped up their third annual "Redraw Tilley" contest (Eustace Tilley is the New Yorker's logo guy – if you go to the contest site, you'll see what he looks like). I found out about it so close to the deadline that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get an entry in under the wire, but fortunately I did. No word on the winners yet (they can pick up to 12). But check out the other entries – sure, there are some not-so-professional attempts, but there is also a lot of great art there as well. There's even some that weren't drawn so well, but were fantastic ideas. My favorite in that last category is the one of Tilley as Batman. If that had been rendered better, and the batsignal had been shining where the butterfly usually goes, I would have picked that one for a winner.

And now a quick rant about professionalism. The one thing that bugs me is how many pieces are entered multiple times, with tweaks or color changes or titles added later. In my opinion, you ought to get it to a complete finish first, and not swamp the contest pages with revisions or slightly different variations (in particular, the one hailing the cab, in I-lost-count-of-how-many-variations, really annoys me). I say, make it as good as you can, and just post it already. Overly cranky on my part, I know, but that's the illustrator in me. If you've got an illustration client, you don't hand them a dozen versions of the final and say, "I don't know, which of these do you think is okay?" That's comp stuff – not finals.

Enough ranting – back to my entry. This isn't totally off the Hansel and Gretel theme I've got going here. I came up with the idea as I was thumbing through my sketchbook, trying to find an unused page, and passed by my witch sketch for the story. I liked the idea of Tilley as a witch so much that I forget what I was going to sketch if I had found the blank page first.

Hansel and Gretel - in process

I needed to get a new post put up – while I like my Santa image, in our house the Christmas decorations come down the day after the holiday, so it is way past time to put up something else.

While I don't have anything finished yet, I have been toying with illustrating Hansel and Gretel for a while. Not for any particular reason, it's just that the story conjures up a lot of imagery for me. And while randomly doodling (you can see it's on notebook paper) I came up with this drawing – Hansel and Gretel coming across the very stuffed and happy bird that ate up all their bread crumbs. The finished piece will be titled "Sorry, Were Those Yours?"

More on this to come, as I take it to a tight sketch and then a finished painting.

Viking Santa

...for no reason whatsoever. I just doodled this Viking, and, when I went to take it to full color, I thought, "Y'know, you make his bearskin red, and this guy's Santa." So I did.

I'll just say that he's the one that brought Christmas joy to all the good little Norse boys and girls back in the tenth century. I imagine that it would be a bad idea to be on the naughty list.

And, despite his rather grim visage, I want to wish everyone Merry Christmas!

Newer, Slicker...

...and something to put up, since the holiday season is upon us and I haven't had a chance to update the blog for a while. Up next, though, a Christmas picture! Of sorts. Coming soon.

The Sad Fate of the Happy ABCs

Remember how I said that Arianna liked her book so much that she took it to the crib with her? Well, there was this one particularly sleepless naptime, with this resulting carnage:


However, perhaps there is a bright side. The ABCs are dead, long live the ABCs! I had such a good experience printing up Arianna's Baseball Catch that perhaps I'll do the same for the Happy ABC. Although this time it won't be watercolor comps, oh no. It'll be the newer, slicker computer illustration kind, as seen below:

Actually, the main benefit to doing it is the local printer binds books with spiral binding, and the book printer binds it like a real book. So maybe Arianna will be able to get her book back, and it'll be somewhat harder to destroy. Or maybe I should just print it on metal plates.

Arianna's Baseball Catch - the cover

Got in the proof from the printer – looks even better than I was expecting. Usually when I do the kids' Christmas books, I just go down to the local print shop and have them staple it or at most spiral bind it. This is the first time I've gone with an actual printer (Walch Printing, to give them a shout out), and so these things look like actual books.

I'll be getting the batch of them in before long, so this post is also to let people know that I'll be selling them soon. Several people have already asked me to let them know when they're ready, and I'll be emailing them to let them know, but for anyone else, you could let me know via the comments section. The price will be $9.95 (which is also a testament for going with a good printer. The local place I usually use would have been about three times that). with an additional $2.50 for postage if you need me to mail it.

I have a paypal account set up, which hopefully will make things easier all around. Here's the link:

Thanks to all the people who have been keeping up with the progress of the book, from the first sketches to the finish!

Little Chef

I don't usually do computer art when I'm doing illustration for myself, but this was so graphic that I couldn't resist.

It all started with a drawing by my four-year-old son, Gavin:

This is actually a drawing of Thomas the Tank Engine. The top is the funnel, the two circles under the face are the buffers, with the wheels below that. You can tell it's a train because of the tracks that come out from behind him.

But I thought it looked like a cute little chef. So I did my version:

And, because I can't leave well enough alone, I also had to do some action shots:

Up next – the cover! For real, this time. Mainly because if I do any artwork between now and when the book proof comes in, it means I'm not spending enough time eating holiday dinner. Happy Thanksgiving!