Tabanero

Here's a character I just finished up for a client. They produce a hot sauce made from Habenero peppers and they wanted a female pepper character that was a cross between a Habenero pepper and Betty Boop.

Coming fall 2013 to a bookstore near you!

HarperCollins made an offer to publish my book. We just finished the contract details for "Dig Dogs Dig" plus 2 other titles in the series. They really liked my book dummy and want to publish at least 3 using the same characters working, building, playing and doing more construction projects. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about signing my first book deal with a major publisher. And it's a 3-book deal!

I guess I'll be drawing dogs for quite a while. The first book, "Dig Dogs DIg" is scheduled to be released around fall 2013, with the other 2 titles, yet to be written, coming out at about 9 month intervals. Hopefully there will be a book 4, 5 and 6 as well...

King Movers

Well the client picked my favorite one. Here's the final art.

King Movers

I still do a little character work for logos and products. Here's a few sketches I'm working on for a client who's in the moving business. Personally, I like the little box on the dolly. That little guy could almost convince me that moving is fun! We'll see what the client likes.

TR Character

Here's a quick character for an old client. It's nice to break away from long term projects and do a quick graphic. This is an internal campaign for one of the countries largest payroll tax firms. A big jump from drawing a children's book.

Dinosaur Bone

I've been frantically trying to finish up the sketches for the "Dig Dogs Dig" book. I'd really like to have a dummy with me at the conference. You never know, I might be able to get it in the hands of someone who thinks it's worth publishing...

Anyway, here's a couple of the sketches I worked up yesterday. Still have 10 or so to finish up today and tomorrow. Going through a lot of digital pencil lead.

Heading to the L.A. Summer Conference

Well the summer Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCWBI) conference in Los Angeles is this weekend. 4 days of great information, presentations and networking. I just got my postcards back from Modern Postcard this morning and they turned out really nice. I'm still finalizing my portfolio and samples of the "Dig Dogs Dig" book project I'm trying to get published. I'm hopeful to meet a lot of great and helpful people this weekend, and get my project in front of a few potential publishers and/or Art Directors.

I'm going to try and post to this blog a couple times during the conference. I'm only taking my ipad, so I really don't know how effective it will be working that way. I know I can check and send emails, but as far as uploading pics and blog posts.... I guess this is why I "need" an iphone.

Stay tuned.

Pages 7 and 8

Well here's the latest spread. I made some adjustments to page 7 after figuring out what I wanted to do on page 8. I don't know if everyone works in spreads, but I can't imagine working differently. Adjusting the color would be impossible any other way for me. I have to see it all before I can decide.

Well this is going to be my last full-color post for a while. I'm going to shift gears and start sketching out the rest of the book. So stay tuned for a lot of b/w sketches over the next few weeks. Then it's off the the SCBWI conference in L.A. to see if anyone wants to publish this thing...

Page 8

Another week and another page. Hopefully two before the weeks over. This is page 8. Page 9 looks like it's going to be a series of spot illustrations, kind of like page 4 but different. I'm just trying to break up the spreads and the perspectives to add a little interest to the book.

Pages 9-10

This is yet another spread I did. This was actually the first one I started with. It's pages 9-10. I know it may be odd to start a book somewhere in the middle, but I like to think of myself as somewhat odd anyway. The fact is I really wanted to draw an excavator that day, so I did.

I've made a couple of changes to the original this morning to bring it a little more in line with the other pages. As I go through this book, everything I draw gets edited over and over again as I discover new ways to draw things and adjust my style. This is a fairly new style for me. I typically have black outlines on everything I draw, but I'm getting tired of that look, so I decided to try something different with this book. I think it lightens up the images and makes them more friendly and approachable to younger kids. It's a little less hard-edged and graphic.

I'm working on Pages 7-8 today... I have no idea what they will look like yet. Guess I'll find out later.

First 2 page spread

Edit: The colors on this page were not working.I liked them, but they didn't flow with the rest of the pages and I never liked the dogs in the hammock. So no the "Sun is actually up".

Ok I did this one last week, but wasn't really happy with it. And...

I'll probably change it before long. I've adjusted the colors on this one a dozen times and I'm still struggling. I don't like the dog on the fireman's pole and the 2 guys in the hammock are just space filler -- never a good thing. I'm thinking of deleting all 3 and putting in a window with the sun coming up, after all, that's what the text says. Hmm, maybe I should read my own story. Stay tuned for the update.

More from the book

Edit: I was looking at this spread and came up with some more text. I just felt this page needed a little more story attached to it. Plus it gives the gas station attendant a reason for being there.

Well here's another page. Still tweaking the little stuff, especially the colors. This page took quite a long time to come together. I wanted a completely different perspective so you could see all the trucks heading down the road. And of course they all need drivers... I still might add some more to this page, but for now, I'm going to set it aside and start a new one.

My 3 year-old editor, Levon, is quite the task master. He comes in about every other hour to check on my progress and let me know if I have enough dogs and whether he likes them or not. I just can't seem to draw fast enough for him. He tells me I'll get better if I keep at it, so I have that going for me.

New Children's Book

Alright, after more years than I care to admit, I'm finally inspired to start working on my first children's book. It's been a long-time desire of mine to publish a children's book and I finally have a story that I have enough faith in to commit the time, energy and passion to see come to life. I'm not going to give anything away quite yet, but here's one of the spreads I've finished. Hope you like.

New project...

I haven't updated anything on this blog for a while....

I'm working on a couple projects right now, but most recently I've been working on a web project that I can't really say too much about. It's a collaborative effort and I'm working on some of the production concept artwork. So these images are not my original style, I'm working with another illustrator and a web-property creator to put together a very fun family-social-media site. Here's just a couple pics of the very large cast of characters. Stay tuned...

New work for HMH

Here's a couple of new spots for another science book being published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I just completed about 20 or so with more to come. I'm getting ready to start on another textbook/workbook project with Cambridge University Press in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned for new updates. I'm getting into the busy time of the year. Tis the season to work long hours. Fa la la la la ......

Some Caricature work

Every once in a while I get asked to do some caricatures for clients. Typically it's for a website or brochure where the they use the images with a fun bio. My style doesn't really work great for caricature because most of my people all look the same to me.

This batch was kind of hard because they were all young guys, in good shape with short dark hair. It makes my job easier when everyone has at least one distinguishing characteristic, glasses, mustache, red hair, bald. Anything. So to help out on this one, we went with hobbies and interests.

Tis the season for Xmas Cards

Just finished up a Xmas card for a client. I usually get a few requests like this around this time of the year. It's fun to do a simple one-off gag illustration now and then. I have a handful of new spots I'm working on for some other clients as well. Gotta start making some Xmas money to buy all those Xmas presents.

Wanted Posters

I just drew up a quick sketch for an old client. They want to do a rewards for referrals campaign with an old-style wanted poster look.

This is right up my alley. I get to draw a bunch of wild-west meets high-tech looking characters. Not sure how much they'll let me make them look like the classic bad guys of the old west, but I'm going to try. This first one is really tame just to set the base line. I'd like to do some handle-bar mustachioed card cheats, ornery bandidos and dastardly-looking gun-fighters. But, I don't think I'll get that much latitude... I mean, they're actually looking to hire these people. Maybe I can squeeze in an evil CEO. Everybody needs one of those.

I'm waiting to hear if they want to go with the sepia-tone look, or full color characters. I'm not sure myself. Anybody want to cast a vote?

December came early this year

Here's another calendar spread for Lifeway. I like doing these, and so far I haven't done the same month twice, but I'm running out of months...

B/W Spots for Georgia Pacific

Here's a couple quick spots for a small project for Georgia Pacific.