Updated: Monsters and Bunnies: Nap Time

UPDATE: You'll notice the right leg is now properly at rest on the floor. Gone is the shaking leg and the motion lines around the area.

This one I had put aside for some time.
Originally the monster was suppose to be more dragon like, with tiny wings coming out of his back. But the sleeping position made it hard to place the wings since they would be pressing against the wall. I liked the composition as it was -- and decided to simply eliminated the dragon wings.

Grayscale sketch of Nap Time, the fourth of six illustrations featuring Monsters with Bunnies

The other problem I still have is trying to show the monster's right leg shaking, like a dog's involuntary leg reaction to it's back being scratched. The motion lines are not that apparent and the right leg looks like it's just floating the the air. I will change this so that the leg lays on the ground properly, (and I'll probably adjust the position of the bunny's head so his ears point out to the left.)

The original pencil sketch. Notice his right leg is shaking in mid air - this has been corrected.

To confirm that they were fast asleep, I added a big fluffy pillow behind the monster's head. The pillow help to create a humorous contradiction to the harsh and dank cavern surroundings. (Ups the cuteness too.)

One from the Archives: Toad & Troll Ad

Pulling another image from the past. This one is from my freelance years. The files says it's save date was on Thursday August 9th, 2001.  I remember being very busy around that time and how all the freelance work went away after the 9-11 attacks.

Looking at this now, it really looks busy, especially without color to add depth. The directions I was given were very detailed and very type heavy. It was extremely difficult to squeeze everything they wanted into 6 panels. But I guess they were happy since they asked me to do several other designs for their company, including the new versions of their company mascots.

Comic strip style advertisement for the card game company Toad and Troll.

Toad and Troll still exist as a company, they're based in Corbin, KY.  Their website seems more streamline now, like an online store.  It doesn't have any of my artwork anymore, which makes sense since their website's "real estate" is better off showing products than promotional images/branding.

I had forgotten about working with them; that is until last year's New York Comic Con, where Toad and Troll had a booth adjacent to my brother's ChopShop table.
Small world, eh?

Daily Quick Sketch: Chicken Little and the SCBWI Winter Conference

This was a sketch I did during last weekend's SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators) conference in NYC. I had a terrific time meeting so many people who have the same drive and passion about telling stories.

Pencil sketch of Chicken Little, one of many classic storybook characters to be used to pitch my next book.

Funny thing about hearing people talk about creativity. . . It makes me want to become even more creative. So as I was listening to the speakers and taking notes, I realized I was sketching subconsciously in my notepad.

Grand Hyatt's lobby area during the SCBWI conference in NYC. This was one of the few images I took since there is a general request to not take any photos of the speakers and to respect the copyrights/ideas of others at the conference. 

Overall at the conference, I was able to hand my promotional card to two picture book editors and now have several good sources where I believe my stories will work. So a submission blitz is being planned out. I've four picture book manuscripts just about ready to submit. In the upcoming two months, I will send each one out to a different editors or literary agents, wait for their responses/rejections and then rotate the submissions -- and do it all over again.

I've set a goal of 5 years: February 2020.
If nothing happens by then -- I'm out for good. But somethings tells me these stories will be made . . . it's just going to take some time and a lot of patience.

Old Timey Baseball Mug Wrap

This one goes way back into my ol' Papel Freelance/Russ Berrie days where we designed novelty gifts. This design was created somewhere around 20 years ago for a Father's Day mug.

The work itself was done by first drawing four pen & ink illustrations. I had to do some old timey library searching for black & white photos to use for reference. Then I needed to create poses that worked well together to create a balanced composition, Once that was done, I took the image, reduced the size, flopped the film and created a repeating pattern in the background. Final stage, everything had to be rubber glued into place on a heavy press board.

Old Timey Father's Day mug design made with pen & ink and then step and repeat photos stats.

Today, this could easily be done on computer in a heartbeat. But back then, this job was tedious. I had to measure everything and figure the proper spacing for the repeating images in the background. As you can probably see, everything had to be hand cut using an Exacto knife.

I do remember that they liked the design so much, I was "awarded" by having to do another similar design with golfers.

Daily Quick Sketch: Goblin Week!

So tomorrow (Saturday) is the end of Goblin Week, aka #Goblin Week which has been running since JAN 25th until tomorrow JAN 31th, 2015.

#Goblin Week was established several years ago on Tumblr & Twitter. It is basically a fun and friendly creative gathering of people drawing/sketching goblins. All images of goblins that are tagged with #goblin week will be gathered by the event creator Evan Dahm.

Playing around with goblins. This image was pencil sketched and then digitally colored.

There's still one more day to go if anyone is interested in submitting there own images.

Flip side: Otter sketches

In the last post, I showed an old Christmas card sketch in blue line pencil. Funny thing is, on the other side of that paper there are several sketches of my supporting character, Otter, from my book, Bobby's Biggest Bubble. You can actually see the pencil indentations of Otter in the paper.

Several character sketches fleshing out the character, Otter, from Bobby's Biggest Bubble

These sketches weren't the first of Otter. These are closer to the actual final version of the character seen in the book. Originally, Otter was to be the antagonist. But over the years, it became more important for Otter to be the supporting friend during Bobby's adventure.

Daily Quick Sketch: Christmas Card Concept

This was an old concept I had when I tried to get into gift cards business a long, long time ago. At the time, I did many silly pet cartoon cards and sent a packet of a dozen dummy mock-ups to Hallmark and Gibson cards.

A rough concept sketch for a humorous Christmas card.

Once I found how little greeting cards paid, I quickly decided to look elsewhere for work.

Original blue line sketch from several decades ago . . . 

First Business Card + Origin of Arrrggghhh Ink

I think one thing all artists, illustrators and designers can agree on, is that they hate looking at some of their early work. At least I feel that way about this item: my very first business card. It has so many errors and flaws -- it makes me cringe. Too many small details, too many motion lines and let's not talk about that font!

My first business card as a freelancer (can't believe people actually hired me!)

Looking back, I remember this image helping me decide on my company name, Arrrggghhh Ink. This card inspired me to make several other similar images. In all those versions, things were always going wrong with the characters screaming, "ARRRGGGHHH!"

This eventually led to things going wrong with pen ink; for example, ink spilling on a white horse getting zebra-striped ink stains along his back. (And instead of screaming "Arrrggghhh", the characters usually just cursed the ink.) Adding the word "Ink" to "Arrrggghhh" was a simple play on words so that, "Arrrggghhh Ink", when spoken would sound like an incorporated pirate company. (And of course there's the Ink/Inc pun . . . )

With so many characters cursing the spilled ink over the years, eventually the tipping ink bottle became my company icon.

An example how the spilling ink bottle became my company icon for Arrrggghhh Ink

My use of the word "Arrrggghhh" has been with me for decades. It was equally inspired by Charles Schultz's Peanuts (which was more Aaugh! than Argh!) and Monty Python's Holy Grail. As a kid, I always loved seeing different spellings of word ARGH in comic books. There was even a short lived comic by Marvel called Arrgh Comics!

When I started using computers, I created my I.D./handle as Arrrggghhh for bulletin boards, online services and I've been using it as my username in almost every online game I've played.

The latest version of the company logo, using the same elements, but cleaner and simplified

Looking back, was it the smartest name to use? Probably not.
People rarely ever spell the name right. Verbally telling someone my email address is often a task.Yet, people smile or laugh at the name when they see or hear it . . . that's why it's a great name. (I've even had several people snort with laughter on the phone; one time was with an IRS agent . . . really, some of them do have a sense of humor!)

People do remember the name - just not the spelling.

I can live with that . . .