Last December, I had the good pleasure to work with Kalos, Inc. on their company Christmas card. I was tasked with creating a “Where’s Waldo” style image featuring ALL of Kalos’s employees. The corporate logo was also hidden in the image. It was a challenge, but great fun to produce.
I’ve just begun work on a new children’s book and have spent this week designing the main characters. Character design is equal parts exciting and frustrating, as I synthesize what the author has imagined with my artistic vision. Sometimes I get it right in one try. Usually, this takes a few revisions. I can’t show any of the work from my new book yet, but I thought it would be interesting to show the character design process from a previous book.
I worked on “Eartha Gets Well” last Spring. It’s written by the husband and wife team of Kristi Falk and Dr. Daniel Falk and published by BQB publishing. This book was unusual in that an earlier form of this story had already been illustrated by a different artist. I was provided with a few samples of the other artist’s work and told to model my “Eartha” character on the original. Here is an example of the original art (and I apologize, but I don’t know the other artist’s name):
So I did a bunch of preliminary sketches (which I didn’t save) and showed two options to my editor:
I was trying to keep the same basic face shape and clothing, but adapted to my drawing style.
Neither of these were quite right, so I tried a few variations on face shape, hair style and even eyes. I’ll omit some of these versions, and skip to the three eye variations I provided, alongside her dog Cooper.
Finally, Eartha’s design was approved! I added some color, and here is here final design:
If you’d like to see Eartha in action, you can get her book “Eartha Gets Well” at this Amazon link:
I just got my copies of my latest project!
(Click on any of the images to see them larger.)
I had the great pleasure to work on the book “Getting a W in the Game of Life” written by Dick Vitale and Reji Laberje. I did all the illustrations, graphic design, and text layout for the book. It was, by far, the most complicated project I’ve worked on. But it was worth it. I’m greatful to Bob Snodgrass and Christine Drummond at Ascend books for giving me the chance to work on it.
I don’t usually post full pages from a book on this blog, but it seemed appropriate in this instance. Here are three pages from the book. What do you think?
The book will be in store sometime in October. You can pre-order a copy on Amazon at this link:
I think it’s been nearly a year since I’ve done an Illustration Friday drawing. I’ve been so busy. And since it’s Thursday, I guess I’ve been busy this week as well. Anyway, here’s a little something for you to look at:
This piece was done primarily with a size 0 Rapidograph pen, the smallest one I own. It measures 6×4.
This blog seems to have become nothing but annoucements of my latest projects. And today isn’t going to be any different.
I’m pleased to announce the release of Pete’s Big Paws written by Cindy Richter. Cindy is a vetran guide dog trainer and put her experience to good use in crafting this tale of an over-eager yet clumsy pup who’s training to be a guide dog. Does Pete have what it takes? You can find out if you buy the book at the Amazon link below:
