D-Bot: Developing a Main Character for a Picture Book II

Hard to believe it's been about two years since I created this story and character while doing jury duty. The long hours waiting was the perfect environment for me to daydream this picture book story.

Character study of D-bot: focusing facial expressions

I have submitted the story many times and have received many rejections. Many just say that they don't see a market for it. Others have said they didn't like or "get" that each robot is named with a letter. I still think it is a fun story about self-worth.

Original pencil sketches of D-Bot heads

I'm hoping the main reason for the rejections is that I haven't had the time to sketch a dummy for this picture book. So I go back every once in a while. Sketching the characters. Fine-tuning. Experimenting. Learning.

Maybe one day, D-Bot. Maybe . . . 

D-Bot: Developing a Main Character for a Picture Book

UPDATE: New Type for Title

I'm playing around with type, trying to develop a title design for the book.

Placed the type on a lower layer behind the character artwork.
Not sure it's good for a children's picture book, but I do like it.

UPDATE: Color experiment

I'm playing around with using a very loose coloring and pencil scratchy pencil holding lines.

Not sure I want to add the rustic tones, might be too much, will have to try out several other color scheme variations. Thinking each type of robot should be a specific color, but not sure the colors should be drastically different.

Liking the look, but the rustic feel might not work for this character

Those who see my work on Instagram might recognize this character. This is D-bot, the main character in its self-titled picture book story. The look of D-Bot has changed quite a lot over time.

A pencil sketch of the latest version of D-Bot

In fact, D-Bot looks nothing like the original sketch from several months ago. As seen below, it was just too ordinary and had no striking features. The story of D-Bot is about self-confidence and self-worth, which needs to show emotions to truly work.

The original 1st sketch of D-Bot

But that first sketch did lead to the 2nd and 3rd versions of the character. Each molding towards the latest design. Take what works and drop what is weak.

2nd sketch of D-bot showed more expression

I like this 2nd version, very playful and simple . . . but I still wanted to explore the character design

Image from a video that was posted on my Instagram account

The character was merging into something I could see starring in its own story. I want a robot, but I also want the character to show emotion. If it's too robotic, it'll usually have a dead stare, and the #3 design didn't have pupils, (which doesn't help the character connect with others.)

Seen here are version #3 (left) and #4 (right) of D-Bot. #3's eyes were too dead and cold.

Below, I broke D-Bot down to all his parts to help analyze and remember how to draw the character. Now, I'm considering using a similar image as a repeat pattern inside the end pages of the book.

Anatomy of a character: breaking it down into small components

Inktober 2018 - Day 01: Poison

My quickie image for Inktober2018 for Day 01 for prompted word: Poison.
Thought Process: I basically thought of a poison bottle. That's it.
Also posted a real-time video of drawing this image on IGTV. About 6+ minutes long. LINK

The first ink sketch for #Inktober2018 (following the prompt list of daily words.)

How different pens create different images

Someone wrote to me asking why I sometimes mention what pens I'm using for different illustrations. What you use often makes a significant difference in how your final image will look.

Below the middle image shows the original pencil sketch for my Day 01 Inktober 2018 entry. Note the difference of the outer two images on the left and right.

Showing how different brush pens can change the look of a drawing. Click on the image to see a larger version.

The left image is more detailed with finer lines because there was a harder point on that brush pen. So that inspires adding more tighter lines for shading and details. The image on the right was drawn with a softer brush tip, which makes it easier to create the flowing and thicker lines. That pen inspired me to use fewer lines and a simpler iconic look. The end results are quite different even though they were both based on the same pencil sketch.

The quick answer to that original question above:
By mentioning the items used to create an image, allows others to know how they could get similar results by using the same product(s).

Daily Quick Sketch: Charli Bean Travel Mug

Created this concept for my wife, who loves coffee, has an Icelandic lineage and is a redhead. So I decided to make her a coffee travel mug using redbubble.com.

The original concept image I though for my wife mug

Now available to the public, if interested here's a link to find it below:

www.redbubble.com/people/arrrggghhh

What the product should look like, it should arrive next week

The original pencil sketch was done in ArtRage Pro 5

The final artwork that was sent to print the travel mug

Mermay 2018: Octo-Tail Mermaid

This is the first year I'm doing the annual #MerMay online event where artists submit daily images of mermaids. Here's this week's image, the Octo-Tail Mermaid.

Rotated the image by 90 degrees, blotted and cross-hatched the background

Original pencil sketch

Cleaned up the pencil line with digital penciling

Laying down the base colors before adding highlights, shading, and details

The original "final" image of my #MerMay2018 Octo-Tail Mermaid
I wasn't happy about her ink at that bottom - so a change was made as seen above

Daily Quick Sketch: Perry Wanna Kracker. the giant pirate parrot

Today's quick sketch in pencil, brush pen and Copic markers. It is a supporting character for a little picture book story I wrote called Pirate Dreams. Perry W. Kracker is a huge parrot, abnormally huge, and he ALWAYS wants a cracker. He is part of the ship of misfits lead by the main character.

Pirry, the Pirate Parrot from Pirate Dreams. Pirry stands about 6'2" and weighs nearly 300 lbs. 

Mermay 2018: Shark-Tail Mermaid

The second image I did for the online event MerMay2018, where artists submit their mermaid illustration during the month of May.

My final version of a Shark-Tail Mermaid with various shy neighbors

The original color background before changes to make the main character "pop" more

The original sketch in pencil

Daily Quick Sketch: Picture Book Character Mash-up

I had purchased new brushes for Photoshop last week, looking for brushes that give a more natural feel than the current brushes available in Photoshop. Grut brushes are pretty impressive because most of the brushes are not cookie cutter stamp and repeats.

Highly recommended, with over 300 brushes for just $20. The site even has a free sampler for you to try: Grut Brushes Link

Playing around with two of my picture book characters: Bladimir Blarfarg and Little Boo
And yes, Bladimir is the one going to the bathroom in the lake

YouTube's The Cozy Chair reads Bobby's Biggest Bubble

Special thanks to Rebekah of YouTube's The Cozy Couch for reading Bobby's Biggest Bubble!

She did an absolutely great job. She is also doing a bubblegum bubble contest. The best bubblegum bubble photo sent to her email (thecozychairclub@gmail.com) wins the book and gum! Wooo!

Daily Quick Sketch: RokSok, Son of Mudsok

Haven't drawn an underling in some time. These are characters to an underground world in a children's book I wrote a few years ago. The story is far from being polished. But I like to go back and add a few details here and there. I not only want the story to be fun, but also educational. Mixing non-fiction with fiction.

Roksok, the youngest son of King Mudsok. Image inked using a Kuretake brush pen.

The original pencil sketch

To see his dad, go here: LINK

UPDATE Daily Quick Sketch: Cap'n Billy Buttons

UPDATE
So what's a pirate character without a parrot? I originally had a parrot on his shoulder, but really dislike the way it looked. I like this new little guy . . . introducing Cap'n Billy Buttons and his parrot companion, Pockets.

A new update: changed Mr. Buttons' colors slightly and added a new parrot, Pockets 

The original pencil sketch for Pockets the parrot

- - - Originally published on 4/7/18 - - -

Here's a character design for my picture book manuscript, Pirate Dreams. His name is Cap'n Billy Buttons, one of the supporting characters that join the main character in the story. He's is a kind soul that is trying to live up to the role of being a pirate.

A digitally colored version of the Cap.n Billy Buttons sans parrot

Cap'n Billy Buttons isn't taken seriously by other pirates, mostly because of his name. So he runs a crewless ship. Because of no crew, Buttons has to do everything on the ship, including the laundry . . . (which apparently he knows nothing about as you can see from the shrunken clothing he wears.)

Hand inked version of Cap'n Billy Buttons with (eech!) parrot (that needs to be revised)

Mermay 2018: Flying Fish Mermaid

This is the first year I'm doing the annual #MerMay online event where artists submit daily images of mermaids. I don't have the time to submit a new image every day, but I will be doing images at least once a week.

The final color image including a school of flying fish, created using Photoshop

My idea for these images is to create different types of mermaid based on their "fish-ancestry". I've more ideas for octopus, shark, whale and lantern fish mermaids . . . ( this is probably going to get very weird as I go on . . . )

The original pencil sketch sans fish

I'm thinking of doing this polaroid concept for all the mermaid images

Daily Quick Sketch: Fox on the Run

Not sure why I sketched this image. Maybe it's because I need a fox character for a picture book manuscript I'm working on, or it's because I was watching Guardians of the Galaxy II again (which has the song Foxon the Run by Sweet in its soundtrack.)

Fox on the Run digitally colored using flat colors

I'll be using some of the features of this fox character for my picture book based on the famous pangram, The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog. 

Original pencil sketch which angle was changed to show more speed and movement

Daily Quick Sketch: Fishface

No idea when I did this sketch, but I found this old scanned pencil drawing in one of my archive drives. I dropped it into Painter 2018 and gave it a few color layers and added some color lines. I believe this was created with a small drawing program called Krita.

FishFace, quick colored version of an old pencil sketch image

Krita had a nice interface and it did a great job of simulating a true sketching line on a tablet. But it had glitches, which would sometimes lose artwork from system lock-ups and/or program crashes. So I stopped using Krita for that major reason.

The original pencil sketch

Like most of the things I find, I threw it on this blog for safe keeping. Never know when I might need a character whose face resembles a fish.