Reflections

The last book for the Stone Arch Books Nascar series is called "Pit Crew Crunch". It's the story of a boy who wins a contest and gets to be in the pit crew on an actual Nascar team.

The cover was a new twist on the old designs as it featured a pit crew team member in full gear looking at his team's race car barreling towards him for a pit change.

So, for the cover, I had to draw and design the car independently and then flop the design for the reflection in the pit crew member's goggles. All in all, not a bad cover. Designing the pit crew helmet and oxygen mask was a lot of fun and brought back memories of drawing jet fighter pilots back when I was a kid.














And, as before, here is the original design of the car and the cover as it appeared before the type and title were laid into the piece.

And, for something else fun, when designing the cars, I had to come up with a variety of company logos to paste all over the cars. Since none of these logos could be existing companies, I had to make them all up on my own. So, here is a partial list of where some of the logos came from:

Macbeth- From Macbeth Shoes, a company who's sneakers I like a lot.
AVA- Angels and Airwaves, one of my favorite bands.
DriveCan Oil- For OilCan Drive, my own cartoon band.
OCD- Once again, Oilcan Drive.
Thorne- For Josh, the great kid I used to mentor.
Pinstripe- From Ska Brewing's Pinstripe Ale, a tasty beer.
Maddox- Jake Maddox, who writes all the Stone Arch Books I do illustrations for.
Jerry Jones- Independent guitar maker located in Nashville, TN.
Beatnik's- Beatnik's Bagels, one of my favorite lunch places, may it rest in peace.
JPGS- File format for pictures saved in Photoshop.
Time Warp- My local comic book shop.
Exit 6- Old self published comic book I used to do.
Stone Arch- For Stone Arch Books, duh.
Graf Auto- For Monika and her family...both brothers work in auto manufacturing and repair.
Lou's- Louis Deangelis, the craziest bass player I know.
Deli Zone- Another favorite place to eat...great sandwiches!

So, there are some of the answers...shhh....don't tell anyone the secrets!