Book - The Last Akaway

Haven't posted for a while, but that's because I've been working on a book! Front cover, illustrations, everything. Couldn't post anything until the work was released!

It's "The Last Akaway" by Gary Karton. If you're in to Harry Potter-age literature (kids? Young adult? Juvenile fiction? Hard to keep track what each sub-genre is called), I definitely recommend the book (I can say that because my work on it is completely done, so I'm unbiased at this point).

I did like the story a lot - not a requirement to do illustrations, but definitely made it more enjoyable to work on!

Threadless contest - please vote!

Threadless is having a T-shirt contest for Monsters Inc. and Disney. This is my entry - if you like it, please go to http://beta.threadless.com/monstersinc/boo-23/ and vote. You'll have to sign up, if you haven't voted on Threadless before, but there's some really great art there so it's worth it just to browse. Any votes you could send my way would be greatly appreciated - thanks!

I'm on They Draw and Cook this month!

The recipe/art site They Draw and Cook has six "Giggling Good Recipes" as the highlight this month, and my art was one of the six pieces included! You can see their site here (which I recommend – a lot of good art there). Or, when they have a different feature some other time, you can see the art here.

The Coffee Queen

A perfect match! The Donut King and the Coffee Queen.

I based her on my wife, which may be one reason why the kids think that I'm the Donut King. This is pretty much how I react to her. Initially I was just going to do a drawing of the Queen's portrait, but thoughts of my wife inspired me to draw it the way I really feel.

Although if I ever grew facial hair like the King, I'd find myself sleeping in the bathtub. And shaved when I woke up.

Christmas Book 2012 - the Donut King

Yet again, it was time for the kids' Christmas book! Was initially planning the pirate story, but wanted to get back to some watercoloring roots after all the computer art I'd been doing lately. So I did The Donut King instead.

Here's the man himself, looking all round. His title isn't a misnomer. I'll put up more pictures in future posts.

The kids liked the book! I got a few comments that are either praise or slights, depending on how you take them. One was that the Donut King is supposed to be me. I think that's because of the facial expressions, since I'm not round (although my wife, with her great cooking, is working on it) and I don't have facial hair. In addition, I've been known to eat things other than donuts.

Second, my oldest daughter said, "You wrote this? Really? It seems like a real book!" I'll take that as a compliment and not a reflection on previous books. Although to be fair, my then 4-year-old wrote last year's. But to me it seemed like a real book, from a clever and precocious young author.

But I may be biased.

Lowe's TV commercial

I got to do artwork for a Lowe's commercial! Worked with the great guys at Fogomotion who took the flowers I illustrated and animated them. Above are some screen shots, but you can see the complete commercial here.

The Battle of the Five Armies - take 2

Here's another version of this one - some comments from people were that it was too bright and cheery for an epic battle. So I grimmed it up a bit, and added some details to the main figures' shield and axe.

As you can see, I've got all The Hobbit trailers on my mind, I keep going back to this book! Can't wait for December.

Hobbit Day Birthday Cards

This Saturday (September 22nd) is Hobbit Day, because that's Frodo and Bilbo's birthday in the books. So I got it in mind to make a birthday card. Then I began wondering where you would get birthday cards in Middle Earth. Then (in another free-associative leap) I wondered if you did have, say, Hallmark Cards in the Shire, what kind of cards would they sell? So I went from thinking of doing a drawing for Hobbit Day to designing a selection of birthday cards for an imaginary card shop:

(click on image to enlarge)

And then (I couldn't stop) I went on to look up how card sellers show their cards online, and how they show the inside message. Once I looked that up, I had to follow suit:

(click on images to enlarge) 

Happy Hobbit Day!

Even Gooder Good Guys

Back to the Pirates... and, of course, the kids have to be on the crew. But as usual, they're very inspiring, so when I first saw them on a blank white page I knew that it wasn't quite there yet. So, to make a page worthy of these swashbucklers, I decided to put it on paper the like of Old Flint's map.

My first animated gif

A gateway into animation! A very cheesy gateway, from my pretty basic pig, but animation nonetheless. Pixar be warned, I'm up and coming.