Going Home, My Piece For Maverix Studios Art Auction Benefit for Japan Relief

Here is a piece I did for a special auction to help Japan on the road to recovery. I was contacted by Patrick Awa, an amazing artist who has worked on the design of films like Legends Of The Guardians. You can read more about the event on Patrick's site and also the Maverix Studio site.  This is an important cause, if you can please help out.I was inspired by the compassion that the Japanese people showed immediately after the event, showing care and love for even the smallest creatures.

OnSpec Cover

I received copies of a sci fi magazine cover I did last year. This was a really fun cover, they basically told me to do what I want. Also interestingly, to me anyway, this is the first thing I've had published that was done heavily with digital. It's a gouache painting that's very much tinkered with in Photoshop.

OnSpec is a great Canadian genre magazine. Mostly fiction and all high quality. There are more pictures by me inside as well as an interview.

Marching With The Grass

Another new portfolio piece, also done with pencil and digital-a technique I'm warming to more and more. I'm trying to get a done a number of smaller, graphically simpler pieces done for my portfolio, something I don't have enough of. I think these simple images are pretty popular with art directors and readers. And I love doing them, the restraint is worth it.

In The Crowd

A drawing I did for a picture book submission with a friend. This is just a small part of the picture but I really liked this little crowd scene. Really fun to draw. As I worked on this I felt like I was really hitting on something, something I should explore more. I plan to scan this in and play with it in Photoshop.

Free Brushes!

The brushes that come with Photoshop are great. The get the job done. But there are a lot of free brushes available for download online as well, usually created for artists for other artists. Very cool. These were done with brushes created by Chris Wahl.

There Are No Cats In This Post

I think a good review of a book by Henry is when he has me read a book over and over again and then, later that day, he reads it to me. This is one of those books. There Are No Cats In This Book is beautifully illustrated and a joy to read aloud. The writer/illustrator is one of my very favorites ever. It's a wonderful book.

Spectrum Silver Award

Wow! I was so excited to rip open the box to get to my Spectrum Silver award. It is SO cool. You can move it around and change the design. I'm so proud of this.

Diana Wynne Jones

I am so saddened to hear of the passing of Diana Wynne Jones. She is one of my favorite writers. If you've never read her work please go out and find one of her books. They are magic. I can barely begin to express the impact she's had on my work.

Sky Process

So, a bit on this piece and how I did it. It's not an especially original process but it's a pretty individual one. Combining pencil and digital lets you have a real individual touch and have a really polished piece. Above is the original pencil drawing which I scanned in. I was pretty happy with it but had some issues with it.

And below here is the piece after I had played with it digitally. (To see the final colour version click here) I can be a bit of a perfectionist so I find I had to make sure I didn't go overboard. I didn't do a lot to the original but the combination of Cintiq and Photoshop is pretty powerful and a little goes a long way. It's surprisingly how quickly you can work this way.

Grass Thing

Thanks so much for all the kind comments on yesterdays new portfolio piece. Here's a new one I'm working on, or rather a sketch for one. I plan to add about 5 or 6 new pieces before relaunching my website. I'm really loving the possibilities I'm finding combing paper, pencil and digital. I have to say, it's giving me the tools to do things I've always wanted to but couldn't.

Watching The Sky

This is a new portfolio piece, the first in a long time. It was nice to do something just for my portfolio. I find it necessary to go back and tweak my portfolio quite often because it represents the kind of work you want to do, so you can do work just to guide it toward representing your current work. I have planned a few simple pieces like this.

I did this in pencil and digital, something I'll be exploring a lot more, I think. I found this a pretty amazing and fast way to work.

Ballooning

A sketchbook sketch I doodled over in Photoshop. Another sketch for the porcupine piece I've been working on.

Still working o getting a new online portfolio up. I think it'll be the weekend before I can devote any real time to it. Thanks so much to Ben Towle for helping me with this. I'd have been totally lost without you.

Went out to the movies with a couple of friends last night, a rare treat. We saw The Illusionist which was brilliant. It's a nearly wordless, animated movie that feels like great French movie from the 1960's.

Something In The Sky

Another peek at the new portfolio piece I'm working on. Had trouble leaving this drawing to go to bed last night, it is so much fun to draw. I'm really excited to see what I can do with pencil and digital.

In other news I'm switching my portfolio site to a WordPress blog. I've had a portfolio site for years but because I'm so ignorant of code I've never had much control. My portfolio looks outdated in a week or two. I'm hoping a semi static site is the answer. I'm currently getting lots of help with it because I'm so bad at this stuff. Hoping to have it up and running in about a week.

Porcupine Sketch

A porcupine sketch I did in preparation for a new portfolio piece. also experimenting with what I can do with a pencil drawing in Photoshop. It's so nice to be working on children's book pieces again, I spent most of the last and a half doing more adult stuff and never felt as at home as I do with kids stuff. I'm happy drawing anything but kids stuff is where my heart's at. It's my richest creative vein.

Pretty Super

I have a pretty crappy camera so I had to settle for a more...expressive photo of tonight's "super moon", which is the closest to the Earth a full moon will be for 20 years. It's beautiful. Everything's illuminated in the most amazing hues. Magical.

Plump

More sketches from a picture book project. I'm playing with importing pencil drawings into the computer and playing with them digitally. Liking the results so far. It's the weekend which means a precarious juggling of work and Henry. At the moment I'm trying to get more projects lined up over the next year.

The Butcher

A character sketch done for a picture book submission I've been collaborating on. I coloured it in Photoshop and quite like the flat colours over the pencil.

Today I'm also working on an idea for a picture book I'm calling the Brave Robot for now but I'll probably change it. It'd be nice if I could, like I sort of did with Maddy Kettle, charting the creation of the book and my attempts to see it published.  My thinking is to work on a number of picture book ideas and have an agent look for homes for them. I might be being overly optimistic at this point. Who knows where publishing is going? Regardless, it'll be a great way to build my portfolio back up. 

Escape Pod

A sketch I did for the Robot Museum. I'm thinking now it'd be a great middle grader book, heavily illustrated. I'll keep working on it and see where it goes. Working on a bunch of different things today, waiting to hear back about a potential new contract.

Writing

I've decided to try submitting proposals for picture books again. I just love telling stories and really want to get more projects out there. I thought about doing this some time ago but got discouraged by someone's thoughts on my script. So easily knocked down! I had a great email conversation with the brilliant Janee Trasler yesterday that made me feel really encouraged. There's nothing like encouragement from someone whose work you loved before you came in contact.

The Case Of The Unexpected Week!

So, with Julie and Henry away my plan was to work up some new portfolio pieces and get caught up on some projects, but publishing is one unexpected thing after another and I ended up doing some sample illustrations for a new client.

The above drawing is unrelated, just a sketchbook sketch. I'm actually pretty happy with it and am going to explore this look a bit more.

Bleep! Bloop! Blorp!

Had a long talk with Julie in the car the other day. OK, I had a long rant/monologue about all the dumb decisions I've made that if I'd known better I would've done something else. But of course it's all moot now. That's the way we all get from to point b

.I've realized that indy comics don't make a lot of money. I've been turning down contracts so that I can just work on comics and in retrospect that was a really bad move. Even the publishers warned me not to do that. I'm thinking about other ways to get my work out there while pouring all my comic book heart into Maddy Kettle.

So, I hate to say this but I'm going to have to abandon my spring webcomic.I know it's something I've been talking about but I just can't afford to do an indy comic and a webcomic as well as illustration jobs, which is where the money comes from. I'm thinking again about illustrating books to tell other stories at the moment.

So, that's the plan right now; just do Maddy Kettle and start taking more illustration work and try to develop my own illustrated books. I'll report on it as it goes along.

Henry In My Hat

A quick Cintiq sketch of Henry done last night during a work break. I used one of my favorite photos of him as reference.

What's interesting and important to keep in mind when drawing digitally is that the aesthetic relies entirely on composition rather than on any materiality. Meaning that everything that's important occurs  in how you lay down the lines, blacks, colours etc. and not in the look of the material itself like ink, charcoal, watercolour etc. I'm realizing that the lack of materiality is one of its defining features. I'm not sure this is entirely detrimental but it's something to be aware of.

Abandoned!

Julie and Henry have taken off to visit Ottawa for a week leaving me here to wallow in loneliness and despair. OK, I'm totally exaggerating. I have a lot of work to do as well as a pile of books to read. I saved the Everyman's Library collection of Ray Bradbury short stories as well as the Hammer Story for when their gone.I'm actually kind of envious. Ottawa is an amazing city and along with New York, Quebec City and Florence it's one of my favorite cities, of the ones I've been to. It's a beautiful city, drop by if you ever have the opportunity. I love cities situated on a river.I'm desperate to get the wireless working in my studio again so I can talk to them on skype. My studio is like the furthest tower in a rickety old castle and my connection fades in and out, mostly out.

My wife says this picture looks more like me than any other self portrait I've done. I think she's right.

Chugging Along

Yesterday was one of those thankfully rare bad drawing days. Stuff got done but not enough. Back on track today. Here's a sketch I did this morning using Painter sketchpad. Nothing to do with any projects. This is how I usually start the day, just sketching to get going.

Sketching Today

Exploring blank sheets of paper with a brush and ink today. Trying to work out some ideas. Very distracted with worry about the people in Japan. I hope things improve quickly.

Thinking About Portfolio Refurbishment

I bought the Cintiq mainly for inking comics but I'm getting such a great response from stuff I'm posting that I'm thinking about adding some digital paintings to my portfolio. I'm curious to see how editors and reps respond to them. digital work is faster than gouache and easier to make edits on, so it makes sense. Also, I've been doing so much grown up stuff that the kids book part of my portfolio is languishing a bit. I'm feeling hopeful about this attempt.

A monster To Bring Spring

A little. wee sketch I did on my iPod Touch using the Inspire app which I've been playing with the last few days.

Express Drawing!

Something I've been doing in the mornings is trying out different software to use with the Cintiq. These sketches were done this morning using the cheap Sketchbook Express software I had picked up some time ago.I'm really impressed with how quickly I was able to do these, you can draw and erase as fast as you think which is pretty fun and it can turn drawing into something that almost feels like performance. I have no explanations for the top two pictures but the bottom one is inspired by Ronald Searle, thanks to Drazen for introducing me to his work! I notice it was just mister Searle's 93rd birthday this week. Happy birthday sir!

iPod Touch Inspire Drawing

Here's a little sketch I did last night just before nodding off on my iPod using a new app I was trying called Inspire.I think he looks like a Wiemar era hunchback.  My iPod touch is now crammed with drawing and painting apps, most of which I still use. It certainly hasn't replaced a paper sketchbook but they are fun to have.

Shadow Talker Header Sketch

Second post today! Not because I have pertinent news you all must know but because I can't shut up. Here's a sketch of a header for my upcoming webcomic Tales From The Shadow Talker, which I'm hoping to start posting later in the Spring. It's a mummified monkey. 

Like it's 1950

Here are a couple of really quick sketches I did on the Cintiq based on illustrations by Mary Blair and Miroslav Sasek, two amazing mid century illustrators. Something I never tried using gouache and watercolour was drawing with just shapes and colour and I found this a great exercise. I think the Cintiq made it easier to play with this kind of drawing. Easier to think flatly and in just shapes. It's a bit like oil paints that way, it really lends itself to a sort of back and forth kind of drawing; working one colour over another.

I'm trying to bring more of this kind of art into my own work, working with shapes, flatness and negative shapes more. But combining it with rich hatching and energetic lines.

Digital Pencils And Inks

Here is what I consider a much more successful go at digital penciling and inking than the one I posted yesterday.A number of people have suggested I pencil on other programs; Manga Studio, ArtRage, Illustrator and SketchPad Pro and I'll try all those but I have to say I really enjoy penciling right in Photoshop, it's so straightforward.

Here I penciled in two tones, white and gray. This way I was able to work out the most important compositional information without getting bogged down in details. What you're seeing here is the pencil and panel border layer on top and on the bottom I'm showing the pencils, panels and one layer of inks.Another aspect of working this way I like is being able to look at the image at different sizes so you can judge the over all composition fairly easily.

For this story, Tales From The Shadow Talker,   I'm really being inspired by mid century illustration, much more than ever before. Especially the work of Art Seiden , whose work really blows me away. I'd like to post more soon on a bunch of amazing mid century illustrators I've been looking at lately. There is so many amazing artists who just aren't getting the attention they deserve.

On a more practical note this was a terrible work weekend. My wife and I didn't make proper working plans so I only really got to work when I could sneak away for a little while. Lesson learned.

Digital Penciling, First Try

Yesterday I made my first pass at digital penciling, doing a sketch layer in Photoshop to ink on top of. I wasn't happy with this so I started over, but it was an interesting experiment. One thing I had to establish was how much of a sketch to do, in this picture I had decided on having the pencils be a three tone value sketch. The thing that took me the longest time to work out was inking then panels. I had no clue. It's actually kind of hard to draw a really straight line on the Cintiq, that's when you notice the slipperiness of the surface. I ended up using the line tool, something I'd never used before.On my second pass at doing the pencils I chose to have them just one tone, which is seeming to work better. Less busy looking. The one thing I'm trying to work out now is how wide my brush stroke should be, I'm trying to get something more or less the equivalent of .005 marker. But Photoshop likes to talk in pixels, not inches and millimeters. 

The Spider Goblin king

Another redesigned Maddy Kettle character, the king of the spider goblins. Today is a bit of reprieve, all my assignments are up to date and I can breathe a bit easier.I'm taking a bit of time to work on personal projects and collaborations which feels great.

Mr Bill Kettle, Kangaroo Rat

Another character redesign for Maddy Kettle. SO much happier with this than my original kangaroo rat sketches. Sometimes it seems to take a bit to get the actual animal out of my mind and draw a cool character. Or like I need to internalize the animal until I don't have to draw it as it really is.

Currently rewriting the ending to Maddy Kettle. I finally managed to get it where everything seems to resolve logically but I'm trying to figure out the moment and the note where it ends. It's a continuing series of books so it doesn't need to end like a novel. Which it ain't.

Little Monster

Just a little Cintiq sketch, today. Never been crazy about computer coloring. I always want that flat Tin Tin like look but can never get it.

The Thumbnail Machine

Yesterday on Facebook and Twitter I was talking about how much  I was enjoying thumbnailing using the Cintiq. Some of you were curious about what they looked like so I thought I'd post some contrasting images here.

 While Maddy Kettle is already underway my editor asked me to revisit some scenes and refine them. So I took scans of the most recent marker and paper thumbnail draft and started drawing over top of them on the Cintiq using Photoshop. I found this a really useful process as I felt totally free to try different things without feeling tied down to a composition.

Here's page one. On the left is the version drawn on the Cintiq and on the right is the original drawn on paper with marker. My intent on page one was to just tweak it but I found myself redrawing it entirely and in the process discovering how static the original composition is.I ended up erasing the whole image and replacing it.

And this is page three, again the new version on the left and the old on the right. Here is an example of me tweaking a page digitally rather than redoing the whole thing. Because I can zoom in I found I could define actions better, hand gestures and head tilts that I find difficult otherwise in this stage of the process.

Please don't think I'm suggesting the Cintiq is the best tool for drawing period. I find I'm taking to it quickly and it's very suitable for the kind of work I'm doing right now.

Back In The Den Of The Spider-Goblins

I've gone back to some of my characters for Maddy Kettle and have been refining and defining their look. I'm already underway with the book but this was requested by the publisher and it's a good idea. Now I'll have definite sketches of all the secondary characters to draw from. I also changed the look of some of the creatures a bit, taking this opportunity to make improvements. Sometimes this project feels like I'm making a short movie, on top of the story telling there is a huge amount of world building and design going on. Something I've noticed is I'll think I understand the look and personality of a character fully but after a few more sketches something better and closer to the heart of things emerges.Another thing is that Maddy is visually very shape oriented, the characters, the building and landscape are all built on simple shapes, despite all the hatching and shading. This revisiting allowed me to let some characters catch up to that more unified design.