Illustration Friday: Metropolis

Illustration Friday: Every Friday a word is given on the website, IllustrationFriday.com. Artists and illustrators then submit an image that represents that word all during the week. Tossing this in this late submission in the final hours for Illustration Friday's word of the week: Metropolis.

The city celebrations from my picture book "Bobby's Biggest Bubble"

UPDATE - Daily Quick Sketch: Space Frog

Update: Space Frog in Color

I took the pencil sketch and colored it in ArtRage Pro using the Oil Brush and Rough Canvas. I was very busy with work and fixing my computer this week, so I didn't have much time to spend on these personal images. I was mostly looking for speed with coloring and adding the background, so I kept everything very simple.

Frog freaking out that he is in space.

Colored with ArtRage Pro using Everlasting Oil brush settings and Smooth Ink pen.

Today's daily sketch is little scared character. For now, I'm just calling him Space Frog.
Looking online, I found quite a few "Space Frogs" using that name. But this character design was done entirely without knowing about the other existing space frogs. (Hmm, maybe that's why he feels so scared and all alone.)

Pencil sketch of Space Frog ( for now . . . until I think of a better name . . . )

If I get the time, I will return to this image and try to add color and a scenic background. Maybe add a space monster behind him, eh? (That'll give the little fella a reason to be scared.)

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 . . .

Children's Book: Lil' Mouse in New York City

Back in 2001, I was working on a children's book idea about a small mouse visiting New York City. I had the story summarized and even started to take reference photos of the city, especially at night around Time Square - the central focus area of the story. My idea was to alter the photos into graphic backgrounds and draw the characters on top of those background. (Similar to what an animated film does.) The difference would be that I'd make the backgrounds very abstract but still recognizable as being New York City. Doing this gave the book a nice look and it would  also help stop any legal or copyright problems from occurring.

The now defunct children's book "Lil' Mouse in New York" circa 2001

In the story, Mouse is awestruck and overwhelmed by the pace of the city. At one point, Mouse feels he doesn't belong and could never live in such a huge city. Then one by one, other animals appear before Mouse; several park pigeons, a police horse, a guard dog and even a mouse-friendly cat. They each convince Mouse that he would be great in the city. In the end, Mouse, with guts and determination . . . decides to call NYC his home. (The running theme throughout the story was pretty much set to the song New York, New York.) This was all coming together during the Spring of 2001.

Then 9-11 happened. Everything changed. I stopped working on my books, especially a children's book about a city that just went through hell . . . it no longer made sense to continue.

Being a freelancer at the time, the attacks made it impossible to find new work. Even companies that would normally pay on time, were now taking months to send their checks. I couldn't continue my desire to do children's books anymore . . . I needed to find steady work to pay the bills. I went back into the toy making business.

Simon Prescott;s "Small Mouse Big City" - published in 2010 by Sterling

Cut to nearly a decade later, the same concept was done by another writer illustrator, Simon Prescott. My feeling now is that even though my idea for designing the story is very different, my fear is that my idea is too close to his story.

Quick Daily Sketch: Gramps Attacks!

I can't tell you how strange it is to find old work that I did . . . and have no memory of drawing it. That's what happened today. As I mentioned in prior posts, I've been trying to organize my work and sketch books. I have too many sketch books that I start then I jump into another, then another . . .

After awhile, I lose track of where my sketches are stored.

In this case, it was a smaller sketch book, trapped between two larger books on my top office shelf. I quickly flipped through, not expecting to find anything . . . but there were quite a few sketches, including this one:

Gramps flagpole leaping into action with probably one of the most dangerous guns ever created.
At least he's not pointing it at someone . . . 

Of all the characters I have created in my lifetime, Gramps is my favorite.  Gramps is from my comic strip, "Home of the Brave". He was a super spy, who caused many well known events in history to occur (good and bad.)  He, along with some of the greatest inventions and weapons ever created, have spent the past several decades hiding in the family attic. Though the family thinks he is insane, and he is . . . the things Gramps knows could topple governments, change history and alter reality (which might be why he's insane.) So it was a pleasant surprise to find this sketch, since I don't remember ever creating it.

I even put a version of Gramps into my first kid's books: Bobby's Biggest Bubble.

Every once in a while, I think of possibly going back to the strip. In the last 80's, there was no world wide web access, only dial-up services and bulletin boards. The strip was available via a monthly downloadable fanzine format, which could be accessed through Qlink's dial-up service. And though we had a very limited audience, I was really inspired by the fans' comments and emails about the strip. (The strips were later reprinted and then continued with new monthly strips in a local tri-state tabloid called Spa Times.)

Another sketch of Gramps, though this time he's a bit more younger and this image I remember drawing.
This is how Gramps looked just before he hid away in the family attic.

There is so much material on the strip, yet I've never taken much care of my artwork in the past. Drawings were often just piled up and thrown into random boxes. Hopefully, one day I can find which box I put them in . . . then maybe reboot this strip into the 21 century.