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.

One from the Archives: Wooster-Sawz

Found this old sketch from one of my old hard drives. All I remember is creating several young kids who grow up in a very bad neighborhood, wanting to make a change. They decide to wear super hero costumes and start helping people in trouble around the neighborhood.

Circa 2000: Original pencil sketch of team leader, Wooster Saws

Wooster is the key character, motivator and leader of the group. Ironically, he is incredibly skinny, very weak and is usually picked on in school. But it is his street smarts, drive and heart that make the others follow him -- even under the worst situations. The group consists of a motley crew of characters: Shelli, a freckled faced girl with braces who is shunned by the other girls. Todd, a huge muscular jock who is picked on by his peers because of his speech impediment. And Chaz, the overweight mathematical whiz-kid who lacks any and all social skills.

I still haven't located the other three character sketches, hopefully if I do, I will update this post with those images. There is also a rough summery of the story somewhere on one of these old CDs/Hard Drives. Hopefully one day I can revisit the idea, and maybe do something with it.

Daily Quick Sketch: Santa? (Updated)

Well . . . better late than never.

During the holiday break, I did many Santa doodles - trying to design new and different designs for Santa. I never had the time to post these during the holidays, so here are a few you can see now, post-Christmas.

This one was inspired by Aardman Animations' Wallace and Gromit style. It's the only Santa I colored and posted to Google+ to see it they would "auto awesome" the image with a snow effect (like they did to my Santa image from last year.)

Wacky Santa highly inspired by Nick Park of Aardman Animations (of Wallace and Gromit fame)

Still haven't seen the effect be made on the image, maybe they stopped doing that effect to the images due to too many people complaining that Google was altering their images.

This one was made because I was thinking of all the versions of Santa around the world. Many Santas were inspired by national traditions or fables. Our American Santa image was heavily inspired by the poem "The Night Before Christmas" and visually branded by Coca Cola's advertising in the early part of the 20th century. But what if another American classic had inspired the look of Santa instead . . . that's when I thought of one of America's most popular fables, Paul Bunyan.

This one I call Lumberjack Santa. A Paul Bunyon inspired Santa sans his big blue reindeer.

His open coat/bare chest was inspired by the Ghost of Christmas Present, in which several old "A Christmas Carol" movies had the ghost seemingly naked underneath his huge robe.  I was going to include a huge blue reindeer too . . . but didn't get around to it.

Here are a few more doodle sketches from around that same time:

Rushing Santa - always seems like Santa should be rushing around , especially in December.

This was a little weary Santa, looking like he a bit tired of it all . . . 

Not sure what to make of this Santa, but his mustache is definitely too crooked.

Daily Quick Sketch: Trick or Treat Ghost

Another sketch from several months ago in my sketch book. This one a simple ghost trick or treating on Halloween. I like the idea of not showing any visible hands holding the pumpkin handle, yet you can easily imagine that a hand is there.

Pencil sketch from one of my sketchbooks in 2014

Daily Quick Sketch: B'Gok

Been cleaning up my hard drives for the new year. I found many sketches and images that I had the best intentions to post here, but never found the time. Many are now out of season, (quite a lot of Santa sketches.)

This character was made shortly after I did the image of the monster character Margarrr for Illustration Friday back on Oct 24th, 2014.  I actually sketched 4 characters but only colored two. Here is the giant monster B'Gok!

One of four giant monster characters made in Oct 2014.

These giant monsters were inspired by the old video game Rampage and Godzilla movies. The failure here is that I didn't create a city background to help scale the size of the monsters. Without that scale, this creature could be two foot tall. 

The original pencil sketch - seen here facing left. Later the image was flipped when being colored.

Inked version before it was cleaned up and colored.

Character Re-Design: Card Goblin

Okay . . . a new year.

Time to get back into the swing of things. This past holiday season has been a complete mental and physical drain both with work and life in general. I'm looking forward to a better year.
So let's begin with this project I did recently for Geoff Smith who hails from the UK . . .

In late October, Geoff had contacted me on Facebook. He had seen my work and was interested in a custom design, especially one that would be similar to the Goblin I created for Steve Radabaugh's Dungeon Marauders game last year.

At first I was against doing the project, especially being in the middle of a highly stressful deadline holiday season. But we agreed on a one&done deal, where I would do a pencil sketch based on what he wanted, then ink/color in my spare time . . . no deadline, no revisions/changes.

Final colored version, inked & colored in ArtRage Pro

Whenever I had the spare time, I'd doodle a few ideas out for composition and character in my sketchbook. The first character image was too happy and pleasant . . . almost too elf-like. But I did like aspects of the character. Geoff did say he wanted a bright eyed goblin, but this was going away for goblin territory and more into a Archie comics territory.

Pencil doodle in my sketchbook that started looking more like an elfish version of Jughead. 

I decided to use more of the character I made for Dungeon Marauders, creating a more grittier and gruesome look. But this time I went too far in the other direction . . .

Rough sketch. It was here that I knew that the legs would have to be omitted to keep it close-up and truly see the cards in his hands. Though the cards are blank, their positioning and general focus is just as important as the character.

The Goblin became too evil looking and creepy. He definitely didn't seem of sound mind. Since Geoff wanted to used this character for his website/small business (trading cards & games) this character needed to be a little more friendlier and look less like a zombie. The entire composition balance was off too; too much space behind his head and the shoulder dagger just wasn't working for me. Still . . . he needed a weapon. A sword would be the answer to both composition issues.

The plan then was to go somewhere in the middle of the two sketches. It would be quite some time later that the 1st official sketch was done over the Thanksgiving break. On Dec 2nd, I sent the below pencil sketch to Geoff. The rope was a last minute decision to create a nice border for this image to be used as a spot illustration.

Second pencil sketch: tighter details and the composition was now balanced thanks to the addition of a long sword.

It wasn't until New Year's weekend that I finally inked and colored the image, creating several variations for Goeff to play with. With the final touches finished, I sent several files off into a DropBox folder and shared the contents with Goeff.

A color variant, giving the character a very unique look from the normal Goblin traditional colors.

Funny how we take today's technology for granted . . . sending something instantly overseas in a matter of seconds. Geoff seemed very please by the work. Glad I could help. I wish him the best luck in his business ventures.

Now onto another little project for my friend Steve and his new game Fae Ball.

Daily Quick Sketch: Heppy Santa

Been quite awhile since I posted anything here.

My job has me running in circles, fried and exhausted. But things are starting to slow down and there is the holiday break soon approaching. So I thought I'd throw in some Holiday images in the next week.

First up . . . It's Heppy Santa, Kids!

Heppy Santa was create using ArtRage Pro 4.5 with the ink pen for outlines and charcoal settings for coloring

I've been sketching many different Santas lately, mostly for work. Trying to find different ways to draw him and alter his appearance.

The original pencil sketch, one of many various Santas I have been designing these past few weeks 

Creative Process:
This one I simply wanted a big, grinning, funny Santa.
Once I drew the grin, it inspired me to make a huge and wide mustache to cover the lips. Then once I curled the mustache -- I had to do the same for his hair. Small hat + huge body; always one of my favorite character trait combos. Of course giving him tiny hands really helps make the image look even more weird. I just always love making big bulky characters with thin arms and legs . . . it's very pleasing to me for some reason.

To help soften the image, the outlines were toned down to a bluish hue. A nice, snowy, cool-toned background was thrown in to counter the warm Santa suit and create a proper environment for the character.

I liked this Santa so much -- I created a new cover image for my Facebook page using him (in a kinda creepy way though)

Daily Quick Sketch: Frankenstein's Monster

Today's daily sketch is one based on the current design work I am doing for next year's Halloween products. I was looking for a way to make a more simplistic and iconic version of Frankenstein's Monster for a bag design. So I simply started by sketching a cartoon version of what I already visualized the character to be -- with one major difference: greatly elongating his forehead.

Quick daily sketch: digitally colored with thick brush settings in Photoshop

After sketching I laid in quick thick brush strokes of muted colors, trying to downplay the color saturation, making the image dark and gritty.

The final product design is based on this sketch -- but looks completely different and far more graphic and colorful. (Sorry, I can not show the actual artwork since the design is exclusively for the client.)

Hopefully if the buyer likes the design, we will see the bag in the stores next Halloween.

The original pencil sketch of my visual cartoon conception of Frankenstein's Monster

Illustration Friday: Puppet

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.

This week's word: PUPPET

Scanned pencils and digital coloring of Shark Puppet

This was an image I did while trying to think of new toy concepts for Springtime. One of the most popular themes for Spring (after Easter of course) is Sealife. But when I did this image, I was just goofing around and liked how silly the sketch was looking. As a finishing touch, adding the hairy arm in the bottom corner made this even funnier to me.

Currently, I now use this image as my gaming avatar for several online games.

Illustration Friday: Trouble

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.

This week's word: TROUBLE

I'm throwing this on to Illustration Friday on the last day before a new word is selected tomorrow morning. It's basically a sketch from one of my pads that I've had for awhile.

Penciled and digitally colored sketch of the creature who goes by the name, Margarrr!

I figure, if anyone was to bumped into this creature . . . it would probably mean trouble.

Original penciling from one of my sketch pads

Daily Quick Sketch: Pumpkin

Today's sketch was another test of getting loose with my designs and looking for different styles than my usual clean ink clean approach.

Loose digital sketch of a traditional Halloween Pumpkin.

It was also sketched because I've been doing Halloween designs for 2015. So I'm always hoping I can discover a new way to draw the traditional icons we see every year.

Daily Quick Sketch: Spooky Spectre

Today's quick sketch was done while I was thinking of new designs for Halloween Trick or Treat bags. This character was mostly influenced by the many macabre and goth graphic designs I saw during this year's New York Comic Con.

Spooky little specter character, rough sketched and colored with markers. Glow effect was added using Photoshop.

It's nothing new, cute goth items have been selling for well over 20 years now. It seems the big thing lately though is that the cuter and darker the subject matter, the more people like it. (Of course, there's still a fine line to how dark one can go -- but much more darker topics and images are accepted today then say ten years ago.)

Daily Quick Sketch: 3 Little Pigs

This was a quick exercise trying to get very loose with my digital drawing/coloring. This is part of a new picture book story I wrote recently, which borrows heavily from classic fairy tales.

Quick digital sketching and coloring of the pencil sketch seen below.

I wanted to create a very sketchy style, but I still feel this isn't what I'm looking for. The also wanted the colors to be very subtle, but there isn't the balance that I want between the holding lines and color.

Original pencil sketch of the three pigs.

Daily Sketch: Halloween Sacko

Today's daily sketch is a burlap bag character I simply call, Sacko.
Not sure where the idea came from, I'm guessing this was strongly inspired by Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas" Boogeyman character.

Digitally colored with limited Fall colors, simply called Halloween Sacko

Sketching
I remember trying to develop a large, bulky character; but it still had to have some grace . . . not just be a lumbering creature. So I drew a more flowing dance/sweeping pose. Once I decided not to add any limb extremities, it looked more and more like a sack.  So I just went with it . . . and got this.

Original pencil sketch of Sacko from sketchbook

I was looking to practice a woodcut/stamp style of inking with brush pens.
This drawing was sitting in my sketchbook for quite some time. Flipping through the sketchbook, I immediately thought this sack character could be better, with more detail and expression.

Inking
I used a Faber-Castell B brush pen to ink the character. First, I'd draw a heavy outline, making sure it the entire silhouette was completed and adding more pressure to the marker brush then usual.
Then, I started working on the inner lines and cross hatching more details.

I felt the sketch lacked some interaction, so I had added the Halloween Pumpkin for Sacko to toss around.

Testing out a new woodcut style of inking, adding many short lines for shading and textures.
A Faber-Castell B brush markers was used for more natural pen lines.
A white Gelly Roll (8) pen was used for adding white lines, cleaning and correcting errors.

Coloring
Once I finished inking, I scanned the sketch into Photoshop, where I used a limited palette of Fall colors and a radial blend for the background. I decided to keep the colors flatter than I usually do, giving the final image a more "colored stamp" look.