A Tip O' the Hat to Print Ninja

Things are happening fast now.

I must take time here to thank Print Ninja's staff: Paula, Dak and Daniel for helping me get this book to final print. These people have answered my insane amount of questions and have taken the time to make this book look the way I envision it. I highly recommend their printing service; not only because they have a great quoting system on their website with great pricing -- but they have been the friendliest printing staff I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

So . . . The book's proof came in this week. It's looking good. They did a fantastic job making a hardbound proof.

I had several issues, such as the yellow coloring on the cover and the title page, the cover's background color not hit the fold lines and several of my own coloring errors inside the book. Most errors were minor issues and easily corrected.



With the revised work sent, the book is officially ordered to go to final print. The expedited shipment should arrive in about a week or so for me to get out the books to you KickStarters who funded $25 and up. The buttons are also here and ready to go. The bookmarks should arrive with or around the time the book shipment is delivered. So all things seem to be on track.

Bobby's Biggest Bubble Button (say that 3 times)

Here's the artwork for the book's button, showing two styles:

I'm still playing around with the artwork, trying to figure which would look better when in button format. I like the lettering looking more "blown out" on the left, which is similar to what I did on the cover. The image on the right: the lettering reads cleaner.

I also don't know which size of the "Bobby character" I want to use yet.
The smaller I make him, the bigger the bubble becomes, (which is the main idea.)
But if Bobby's image is too small on a 2.25" button, it will be harder to see and figure out what he is doing. I'm going to test out a few samples to see what works best for a 2.25" button.

Bobby's Biggest Bubble: Bookmark

Below is the artwork layout for the bookmark for BobsBigBub.** Note there is a .125" bleed area on all sides of the artwork (you can see the thin black lines in the corners of the artwork.) That's the area that will be cut off so that there's a nice clean edge of the bookmark.  Everyone who pre-ordered the book via KickStarter will be getting several copies of this bookmark.

Later on this week, I will post the BobsBigBub button artwork.

** That's my new shorthand for Bobby's Biggest Bubble, which I have typed too many times in the past few months.

The Ol' Gum Promotional Gimmick

Talking to my cousin Cindy about Bobby's Biggest Bubble, she mentioned that maybe I should consider sending gum when trying to promote the book. Funny thing is, I did try something like that long ago at my first attempt to get the book published.

So I did a quick search on my archive drives. There, among the many archived files of rejection letters, I found the old gum wrapper design used to promote the book. I would send the redesigned gum packs with my dummy book submissions to various publishers.

The plan was simple:

• Buy several packets of Trident gum. 
• Measure the size of the gum packs. 
• Redesign a wrapper that featured Bobby and promote the book.
• Print the wrapper on high gloss film.
• Remove the Trident wrapper.
• Use double sided tape to attach new wrapper design around the trident gum.

It looked really good, but apparently it didn't work.

To be honest, I don't think many of the publishers I submitted to even looked at my book. In fact, I know several publishers never even cracked open the book's cover, because I placed very tiny seals on the edge of the books. When those books were returned - those seals weren't broken.

This is still a good idea.
I think I'll update the artwork and info and try this again.

Bobby's Biggest Bubble: Off to the Presses

After so many months/weekends working on the book, it's finally out to the printer.

WOOT!

In celebrating, I thought I'd post one of my favorite images from the book:

One of the many things Bobby does with his bubblegum winnings.

Below is the final dust jacket artwork that was sent today: 

Pictured above is the full length of the dust jacket wrap. (Plus Note: the book price was reduced down to $15.)

And below is a sample of the inner lining of the book:

Pencil sketches line the inside of the front and back of the book.

Last minute changes - KickStarter Tribute Page

Below is a copy of the KickStarter Tribute page in the book, Bobby's Biggest Bubble. If anyone wants to make a change to their name - this is the final day to do so. The book goes to the printer tomorrow. WOOT!

Final Stretch

Well, for the holiday weekend, I've been at the computer non-stop doing final changes and corrections to the book. Still a way to go . . . keep finding small things that need changes. Being my first book, I'm constantly worried about the layout, especially with the cover and dust cover artwork. This is where all the Algebra from high school finally comes into play. Figuring out where to place the artwork while measuring the surface distance that is created by the spine of the book, (which is figured out by the thickness of the paper and the amount of pages) - I'm sure figuring this all out gets easier with experience . . . but right now -- I'm FREAKIN' OUT! (hehe)

Here's the finalized dust cover wrap - seen below. I'm giving the inner flaps about 3.5" inches inside (hope that's enough to keep the dust cover attached to the book while reading.)








The final price has been reduce from $18 to $15, figuring this will help get the book out to more people. I will also have a free shipping code which will keep the final price to $15 per book.


Well, back to work . . .

Bobby's Biggest Bubble: The end is in sight . . . but I'm squintin'

Few people have been writing and asking for updates. So here goes:

I'm still changing a few things that bother me (like the gum balls) but overall the book's is looking better then I hoped. Coloring and shading have been the time consumers of this project as I expected. I'm constantly altering the coloring, its something I have always struggled with when not just coloring characters. Characters I have no trouble coloring - it's backgrounds. ARRRGGGHHH!

I was also concerned about the second half of the book - because several pages toward the end were the most challenging, So I started to work backwards, from the ending. That REALLY helped more than I expected, because I was constantly worrying on how to tackle a few pages (especially the big ending).
I am so happy how it turned out . . . and relieved.

I would love to show you all those BIG pages now - but I need to keep some of the pages off the Internet and out of access to the general public. Plus, I don't want to give away the entire story. So, I will show the latest coloring to one of the black & white sketches I posted some time ago.

This is the 2-page spread of pages 24+25. It still needs some cleaning, shading and highlighting. Also note the bubble bleeds out of the right side of the frame and off the page. This is something I started doing on many pages with frames to help show the bubble's massive size. There's no room on the pages for Bobby's Biggest Bubble!

Two weeks before sending the work out. Back to work!

Bobby's Biggest Bubble: Now and Then

I mentioned in my previous post how I been enjoying bringing back old characters into my children's book. There are about 6 characters now throughout the book that were a part of different projects from my past. This post focuses on two favorites: Gramps and Mrs. Sugarpants.

These were supporting characters from my comic strip: Home of the Brave. Gramps was an ex-super soldier/spy who had been living in the attic for well over 3 decades. Everyone thinks he's senile, except his grandson, who knows that all the wild stories Gramps speaks of in the past are actually true.

In Bobby's Biggest Bubble, I use Gramps as the local park curmudgeon, Mr Krumple. I was tempted to name him Mr. Seaman, an actual grumpy neighbor who yelled at us back when my friends and I were teenagers. (But, that last name just wouldn't be appropriate for a kid's book.)

In Home of the Brave, Mrs. Sugarpants ran the local store.  She had terrible hearing and the worst eyesight in town. She also had visions of grandeur, believing her store was so popular that it was always filled with celebrities.

In Bobby's Biggest Bubble, I gave her the same job - the local store owner - but with one important change: her name. It had to be changed for the children's book . . . so I toned it down from Sugarpants to Applebottom. It's a safer name and I think kids will enjoy the newer name.

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes: Bobby's Biggest Bubble

I can safely say that bigger is not better. 
Originally I picked 8.5" by 11", the standard letter size, to be the size of my first children's book, Bobby's Biggest Bubble. The reasoning: it is the most economic and largest size to print a children's book. I wanted the bubble in the story to appear bigger than life. But the 11" by 8.5" format makes the images too wide, creating too much filler background.

Too much background = the focus on the bubble is diminished. 

I was also having technical troubles with the 2-page spread pages. When making 22.25" by 8.75" images at 300 dpi on a computer (each image having about 12 layers of line work and coloring) the computer hits a memory limit and the workflow starts to slow down. Especially since I would often have several pages open at once for reference, keeping the style, lines and colors consistent from page to page.

The solution was easy:
Changing to a slightly more compact format of 10" by 8" for the inner pages makes the workflow faster with an overall better composition for the story - this simple change makes the book look better. (The overall size of the hard cover will be about 10.25" by 8.25")

Since this is my first try at self publishing, I'm looking over everything, learning as I go and I can safely say I like how things are turning out. It’s been awhile since I shared some of the artwork. Below is another sample of page 21 from the book in the new size format, where Bobby is just beginning to find out that making the biggest bubble isn't as easy as he thought it would be. 

(PS: I'm sure I'll make changes to to this image too before it's all finished!!)

Kid's Book Process

Below is an example of my process for doing the pages for my Children's Book, Bobby's Biggest Bubble. I'm finding this method to be much more time consuming than expected -- mostly because the files are getting so huge, which slows down the computer's response.

I've been placing every character and it's coloring on separate layers; this was the plan so that I'd have files that would be easy to adjust for an animated eBook version of the story. But when setting the artwork for 11.25" by 8.75" at 300dpi - every time I create a layer, the more memory is consumed. The more memory consumed, the slower the response and adjustments become -- until I'm waiting 5-10 seconds to backup and make a correction. It may not sound like much, but when something pauses the flow of creativity . . . it becomes a tedious and aggravating process.

Shown above are stages #2-4
Sketching is stage #1 and Shading/Highlighting is stage #5 

So now, I've been making adjustments and eliminating layers.I'm forfeiting the convenience of layers for animating the book -- but I need to get the book done first and hopefully keep my sanity for a bit longer . . . 

Balancing Bobby

Color Pencils on Dura-lar.
Dura-lar is a treated film that really picks up and holds a pencil line. The very smooth surface allows the pencil to glide. I find I have an easier time keeping the surface clean of pencil smudges too . . . don't know if it's because I'm more subconscious about not smudging or if it's the material itself.

Little Vader Bubble

Below is a little promotional image I drew in hopes to drum up some KickStarter support for Bobby's Biggest Bubble. Seeing this now, I kinda wish I made the subtle details of the "Death Star" bubble a bit more apparent.

Startin' a Blog

With my 1st book project on the way, I figure now is the best time to start a blog.

I feel like I finally hit a new wave of creative inspiration after years and years of just doing product designs. I've found it too easy to just do work for work sake; and I have forgotten about getting creative for simply having fun and experimentation. 

So, I want to blog about my latest designs and hopefully have fun in the process.

Occasionally, I will be posting about my first children's book: Bobby's Biggest Bubble. Nearly 20 years since I first created the story, and the book will finally be finished this year. (Thanks to a successful KickStarter project and the many supporting people who helped reach the goal.)

The book is set for release this September 2012.