When I work, I keep a list/schedule of what I need to do in a given day in a notebook. I often sketch characters and creatures beside the lists of projects. I consider this my sketch book. Here is a sample of one of the sketches I did today.
Sketch of a cat.
This is an initial character sketch for a children’s book I hope to write and illustrate this year.
Initial Character Sketch fo Hayzle
I am currently working on illustrations for the book Jimmy and the Crow by Christine Stanley. This will be Christine’s first children’s book and it’s a wonderful story. I’ve had a blast with the illustrations so far and Christine has been amazingly receptive and great to work with. I look forward to seeing the final product.
Following are two samples of the artwork for her book.
The Crow eats an egg.
Jimmy dissaproves.
By Jeff Duckworth
Todd the pig had brains of slop,
He wasn’t very bright.
So to school he had to go,
To learn to read and write.
He didn’t learn a single thing,
He chose a different route.
He chased the girls who wore pigtails,
And so they kicked him out.
Click here to read original Todd Poem.
Roomingoby Jeff Duckworth
Tired of Cocka doodle-dooing,
and life in a chicken pen.
A rooster flew south one night,
Wound up with a new girl-hen.
A beautiful flamingo was she,
They hatched an egg together.
What a site it was to see,
a rooster of pink feather.
Time for setting. As stated earlier, I want something simple for This Tree is for Me. The main focus should be on the characters and their interaction with one another, not the setting. However two elements play an important part in the store and have to be given proper consideration: The Tree and the Sea. Also, I decided to implement some textures into the image and since they fell through working for characters, the background is where I tried them. Here is my favorite sketch for setting:
Setting for This Tree is for Me
Next up: Layout sketches.
Applesauce The Wonderchimp,
Can not even fly.
Not a single burst of speed has he,
Nor X-ray super eye.
As mighty as a Wildebeest?
Not close to that is he.
And goodness knows the breath he blows
Would hardly sway a bee.
And if he were to leap
As high as he could jump.
He couldn’t clear a single tree
Even if it were a stump.
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?
Little known fact: Hey Diddle Diddle was originally a joint effort between Mother Goose and her cousin Father Duck. It was part of a collaborative writing assignment they completed while attending Rhyming UniNursery. In fact, this Nursery Rhyme is so old that when she wrote it, Mother Goose was no Mother. They simply called her Goose. Upon achieving fame, Goose dropped both the second verse and credit toward Duck for fear of being overshadowed by his far superior prose. Here is the original version.
Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Bye diddle diddle,
This caused such a riddle,
For the spoon was betrothed to the fork,
But the fork got his wish, the spoon left the dish,
And the two soon had a baby spork.
Spoon, Fork, and Baby Spork
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.
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