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Just for Fun Friday: Father Duck’s Little Jack Hornest

April 10th, 2009 | Author: admin

Little Jack Horner was never intended to be a good boy. How can the simple act of sticking your thumb in a pie categorize you as a “good boy.” As far as I’m concerned, sticking your thumb in a pie categorizes you as ”not so bright boy.”

Originally written by Father Duck with the title Little Jack Hornest, it was a cautionary Nursery Rhyme about bears and the dangers of sticking your thumb in their éclair.

Little Jack Hornest

By Father Duck

Little Jack Hornest,
Sat in the forest,
Eating a honey éclair;
He put in his thumb,
Then thought “man I’m dumb,”
For it really belonged to a bear.

Little Jack Hornest

Category: Father Duck's Nursery Rhymes, Humor, Just for Fun Friday | Tags: Art, Children's Book, children's book illustration, Children's Books, Children's Writing, father duck, Father Duck's Nursery Rhymes, Illustration, little jack horner, Nursery Rhyme | Leave a Comment

Dummy book for Moo-Pig. Next stop, the slush pile!

April 09th, 2009 | Author: admin

Dummy Book for Moo-Pig

The Dummy of Moo-Pig is finally ready to send to a potential publisher. There is a fine line when creating a dummy book. Some say not to put too much work in it as you don’t want to give an impression of a final product. However, I’m a perfectionist. I like to produce a model that an editor can hold in their hands and get a good feel for how the final product will look on a shelf. I do all the printing, binding, and cover myself. The result can be seen above. If there is interest, I will do a walkthrough of my whole dummy book process. I have a publisher picked out and will be mailing the dummy book (the one on the left) Monday.

I would love to hear comments on everyone’s experience with Dummy Books. How much is too much and can producing a “final product” hurt your chances with a publisher?

Category: Moo-Pig | Tags: Add new tag, Art, Children's Book, children's book illustration, Children's Books, children's dummy book, children's illustration, Children's Writing, dummy book for submission, how to make a dummy book, Illustration, Marmalade, Moo-Pig, writing, writing for children, writing for kids | 6 Comments

Birth of a Book Part 7: Curveballs

April 02nd, 2009 | Author: admin

This week I worked on coloring my characters for This Tree is for Me. The original idea was to use patterns from nature to bring the characters to life. I stuck to the plan. Taking the line drawings I produced, I added in color and texture as a test. The following is the result:

Purple Fish Textures Test

Orange Monkey Textures Test

While the textures turned out OK, something was missing. I tried natural textures, manmade textures, geometric textures, etc. but nothing seemed to fit just right. After struggling, I realized why. The lines didn’t want a texture. They were too playful and loose to support them. In the end, Orange Monkey just didn’t look Orange Monkeyish enough and Purple Fish? Well, he was a bit Fishy. I was about to give up when on a whim I applied the same color style as I used in Moo-Pig and in many illustrations on this site. Both Monkey and Fish loved them. I enjoy this technique it shows in my work when I use it. Here is the sketch I came up with:

Orange Monkey and Purple Fish in Colorfulticity.

This works much better. I still plan to implement the textures into the illustrations, but they will be used in the setting. This is a curveball in my plan of attack on the book, but I always follow the illustrations where they may go. It’s always important to me to listen to the story, to the characters, and give them what they need to be successful.

Category: Birth of a Book | Tags: Art, Birth of a Book, Children's Book, children's book illustration, Children's Books, children's illustration, Children's Writing, How to write a book for children, Illustration, Orange Monkey, Purple Fish, This Tree is for Me, writing, writing for children, writing for kids | Leave a Comment

Just for Fun Friday: Father Duck’s Little Miss Mumpus

March 27th, 2009 | Author: admin

This week’s installment of Father Duck’s Nursery Rhymes presents to you Little Miss Mumpus. Mother Goose of course stole her Little Miss Muffet poem from Father Duck’s original. As you will see, this version is far superior.

Little Miss Mumpus

by Father Duck

Little Miss Mumpus
Sat on her rumpus
Eating beans all the day.

Along came a spider
To sit down beside her
But instead was blasted away.

Little Miss Mumpus

Birth of a Book Part 6: Purple Fish gets the Orange Monkey Treatment

March 26th, 2009 | Author: admin

This week Purple Fish gets the same treatment as Orange Monkey. I produced a sketch of possible poses for him while using a build done in illustrator. I tried to replicate some of the same poses in the Orange Monkey sketch. My immediate response is that Purple Fish will be a harder creature to build character and maintain variation. He is less intricate than Orange Monkey. My response to this will be to be creative in how he is used. I will place him in situations and put objects around him to give him maximum expression of character with his simple look. This means a majority of his character will be defined later in the processes. I have also explored the possibility of adding eyebrows. Following is the initial character study of Purple Fish:

Purple Fish

Category: Birth of a Book | Tags: Art, Birth of a Book, Children's Book, children's book illustration, Children's Books, children's illustration, Children's Writing, Illustration, Orange Monkey, Puppet, Purple Fish, This Tree is for Me, writing for children, writing for kids | One Comment

Dummy Book Preview of Moo-Pig

March 25th, 2009 | Author: admin

Following is a preview of the dummy book I created for Moo-Pig. My next steps will be:

Step away from the project for a week or so, getting plenty of rest.
Approach the book with a fresh view.
Prepare final dummy for *gulp* submission. I have done research and chosen the first publisher I will send it to.
Start the process over again with a new book.

Look forward to hearing your comments/criticism. Enjoy.

TItle Page

PCIP Data will go here

First Page of Text

Second Page of Text

Third Page of Text

Fourth Page of Text

Fifth Page of Text

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Art, Book Submission, Children's Book, children's book illustration, Children's Books, children's illustration, Children's Writing, Dummy Book, Illustration, Marmalade, Moo-Pig, Pig Riding, Pig umbrella, Pig with umbrella, writing, writing for children, writing for kids | 5 Comments

Just for Fun Friday: Father Duck’s Humpty Dumpty

March 20th, 2009 | Author: admin

Humpty Dumpty

The Life and Adventures of Jeff Duckworth is proud to present to you Father Duck. What? Never heard of Father Duck? Not many people have. He is Mother’s Goose’s cousin and a brilliant Nursery Rhymer in his own right. As a matter of fact, many of Mother Goose’s Rhymes were taken directly from Father Duck…Humpty Dumpty for example. Below is the original, pre Mother Goose version written by Father Duck.

Humpty Dumpty

By Father Duck

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Had eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Kings Horses and Men Eating Eggs

Category: Father Duck's Nursery Rhymes, Humor, Just for Fun Friday, Poetry | Tags: Art, father duck, Illustration, just for fun, Just for Fun Friday, nursery rhymes, Poetry, twister nursery rhymes | One Comment

Birth of a Book Part 5: Establishing an Illustration Engine

March 19th, 2009 | Author: admin

Down to the nitty gritty of illustration. I like to establish a platform or “engine.” The engine is what will drive the illustrations. It will allow me to create effective, print ready graphics that are easy to build and edit, lend themselves to consistency and push the project to its limits in terms of what it can be. To illustrate this project, I am using Adobe Illustrator. I chose illustrator because it fits nicely with the types of images I want to create. I will be able to scale images up and down without having to redraw them or lose any resolution and drop in colors and textures easily.

My first step in establishing the engine with Illustrator is to create a method to simulate the lines I have envisioned for this project. For this example, I will use Orange Monkey. I had originally planned to use a straight, consistent line. However, while doing the sketches I realized that a jittery quick stroke would work best. I decided to simulate the sketch lines in illustrator. I was able to build a brush that did this effectively. My second step was to begin to build the Illustration in parts. By breaking Orange Monkey up in parts, he could be moved and repositioned easily while retaining consistency, much like a paper cutout put together with brads. I broke him up as a body, 2 legs, 2 arms, a tail, and a head. This allows me to swing his arms and legs to position them however I want and reconfigure his face to get the right expression.

I put all this parts together and played around with poses and positions to see how it works. It was incredibly effective. This method allowed me to work fast and efficient while maintaining the life and playfulness of the original illustrations. Following are the results:

Orange Monkey Sketch

Category: Birth of a Book, Illustration | Tags: Art, Birth of a Book, Children's Book, children's book illustration, Children's Books, children's illustration, Children's Writing, Illustration, Orange Monkey, This Tree is for Me, writing, writing for children, writing for kids | 2 Comments

Visual Evolution of Moo-Pig

March 18th, 2009 | Author: admin

I have been working on Moo-Pig for about 4 months now. That is, the newest incarnation. This is a story that I have been working on for years. 12 years to be exact. Following is a visual evolution of the character as she appears in the newest version. I will show the image and then talk about it and what influenced my next move.

Concept 1

When I first conceived the notion of Moo-Pig, she was actually a physical blend between a cow and a pig. I dropped this idea in favor of a simpler idea: A pig whom liked to do cow things. This would eliminate any confusion for my target age group and would also eliminate the need for the “what’s a moo-pig and how did she come to be?” conversation I imagined between parents and kids. This image is the first image of Moo-Pig as a pig.

This first concept featured a bloated, fat happy looking pig. This went against the story as Moo-Pig would never fall into the bloated, fat happy looking pig category.

Concept 2

Concept 2 featured a more whimsical, playful looking pig. Though I love stylized illustrations, it didn’t work for Moo-Pig. I felt she needed to retain normalcy. The idea behind this is that she would look like a normal pig while other pigs around her would look comical. This would be a twist in that the non-funny looking pig would be non-piggish and the piggish pigs would look funnyish.

Concept 3

Concept 3 Moo-Pig more closely resembles a pig. Though there are stylized parts about her, the overall impression is “pig.” I also eliminated color. At this point it struck me that this was a story about black and white. Color was not needed. I would include one color, blue, which will make sense in the end. I kept my lines playful but made them more controlled.

Final Art for Dummy Book

This is the current state of Moo-Pig. As you can see, I refined the awkward lines in her hind legs as well as a few other places. Overall, the image is consistent with the character. My lines are still loose and lively. I tried to give her motion. I want her to appear simple so that her actions and character define who she is. At this point I also added in the blue color and simplified the shadows. Simplicity is important to me for Moo-Pig.

I am now in the process of bringing all illustrations up to this level. In the end I hope to end up with a nice dummy book I can submit for publication.

Category: Illustration, Moo-Pig, Uncategorized | Tags: Art, Children's Book, children's book illustration, Children's Books, children's illustration, Children's Writing, Illustration, Marmalade, Moo-Pig, writing for children, writing for kids | 2 Comments

Stromple Puppet: Part 3

March 17th, 2009 | Author: admin

Stromple the puppet is half way finished. The head was, and usually is, the hardest part of the puppet. It involved making a basic pattern, gluing together and then cutting wedges out to achieve the correct shape. I was happy to see that I was able to replicate the original illustration closer than I planned. Stromple will look very similar to his children’s book counterpart. Puppets always go this way using the “cut and tuck” method; you do just as much sketching with the foam as you do on paper. Even for a skilled puppet maker, it can be a lot of trial and error.

I have all of the basic body parts finished. I have Stromple’s head, his body and his arms. The only part I am missing are his feet. I will make those when I do his skin. The following are a few pictures of his head from an angle and from the side. Also you will see a tube that will be his legs. and one that will be his arms.

Stromple's head from side and from front angle.

Stromple's body (top, hold is the neck) and amrs/legs (bottom)

Stromple's body (top, hole is the neck) and amrs/legs (bottom)

Doesn’t look like much, but the foundation is there. The head will get some of it’s shape from the skin. I will smooth out and manipulate the shape where needed using poly fill. I will also smooth out the edges by cutting them off with a knife. The legs and arms will be jointed and then covered. The body still needs the hole in the back for an arm to go in. The next step will be to skin the whole thing with fleece. This is where the puppet will start to take shape and where he will gain structural integrity.

Other parts are coming along as well. I have been searching for a perfect pair of shorts for him but had no luck. Today I found a skort that is the perfect color. I will have to do some alterations to make it into shorts but they match nicely with the original illustration. Just don’t tell Stromple that his shorts use to be a article of girl’s clothing…he might have a tantrum.

Category: Puppets | Tags: Art, how to make a puppet, Puppet, puppet making, Stromple, Stromple puppet | One Comment

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Tag-Archive for » Art «

Little Jack Hornest

By Father Duck

Little Miss Mumpus

by Father Duck

Humpty Dumpty

By Father Duck

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