After all the drama in the past few weeks of their lives, I felt that Jim and Ted needed a break. So they’ve landed their helicopter in this peaceful desert and are going to have a nice quiet picnic.
Will it stay quiet? Probably not. Tune in next week to find out.
I drew this King of Diamonds was as part of a contest put on by Playing Arts. Artists from all across the globe illustrated playing cards and the winners of each card get made into a deck. Twelve artists, including myself, illustrated the King of Diamonds. I need your help to make sure my card illustration gets made.
You can help by clicking this link: http://playingarts.com/en/special/vote/king-diamonds and clicking the “like” underneath my name. (This is assuming you like my card the best, but why wouldn’t you?) Voting runs until July 24th. Thanks so much for your support.
Yesterday, the Kansas City Star had an article about the book Just Let ‘Em Play, which I had the pleasure of designing the book cover for. It’s a really good article but, sadly, my cover didn’t make it into the print edition of the paper (it is in the online version, thankfully.)
I thought it might be interesting to show off my process and how I designed the book cover. I’ve done quite a bit of book cover design but don’t mention it near enough here.
I was given the project before the manuscript was complete and going by the working title of Let ‘Em Play. I discussed the book with the publisher, Ascend Books, and got a handle on what they wanted to the cover to accomplish. The book is about a philosophy for youth sports (covering all sports and ages) with an emphasis on having fun rather than winning at all costs. With that in mind, I worked up a few cover mock-ups. I usually do 3 or 4 cover mockups at a time for the publisher to choose from. This particular cover was unusual in that none of my initial drafts were quite right and I went back to the drawing board a few times. Here’s a look at some of the cover drafts and a little commentary on each one. (Please remember that these are unfinished mock-ups and there would certainly have been elements changed or adjusted had any of these covers been used. The photos are mostly unpurchased stock photos and some are watermarked by the owners)
After last week’s startling near-collision with a monstrous mouth– we see that Jim has expertly flown the helicopter away from a giant dinosaur of all things and around many other dangers. Poor Ted is still hanging onto the outside of the helicopter.
What’s next for these 2 adventurers? Hopefully, they’ll land somewhere safely next week.
Jim and Ted have flown from one disaster into a bigger problem. A really, really big problem. Look at those teeth! Uh-oh. What’s going to happen next?
