Skateboard Cover

I finally got approval on the thumbnails I sent in so it's been a busy day of sitting down at the drawing board and doing the pencils sketches for the interior of the newest kids book.

The good news is that I got all the covers done already for the four books I am now working on. So, that part is out of the way and I already know what the main characters look like.

The bad part of doing the covers first is that sometimes, once I read the manuscript the covers are for, I wish I could go back and change little things here and there.

I usually prefer to read the story first, draw the interiors, and then do the cover last. I feel like I get to know the character as I draw the interior and then, when I do the cover, I can do my best version of him. It's hard to sometimes figure a character out from a description as simple as, "a 14 year old Asian boy rides a skateboard in a skate park."

But, I also understand the business of publishing and the need for the covers to be done way ahead of time for promotion and catalog placement. Still, it's not easy on the creative process.

On this round of books I was told, after doing over 50 previous books, that the new covers would be using photos of kids for the covers while I would be doing artwork for only the backgrounds. I thought that was an interesting concept and looked forward to designing characters based on photos already being used for the covers.

So I was surprised when I was first contacted by my art director and told they needed an illustration of the main character AS WELL AS me drawing the backgrounds. Of course this came after I had signed the contracts so I felt more than a little bamboozled. But I wanted to give them the new look they were asking for as well as not kill myself doing double the work on the covers.

So, I looked into taking photos like I usually do for the backgrounds of these books and, using a little Photoshop wizardry, make them a bit more illustrated looking and pushing the book's look in a new direction.

For this cover I headed down to the local skate park and snapped a few shots as the guys around me dropped in on their boards and did a few tricks. Choosing the one I thought worked best with the illustration I did, I kicked it into Photoshop, messed around a bit, added a lot of textures and toothbrush splatter and came out with the piece you see above.

Honestly, I think it turned out great and made the whole piece look like something out of a manga comic book. I loved it!

There were a few changes requested but I'm always happy to do those. I want to make everyone happy and make the best illustration I can for my client. Some simple changes like flopping the motion lines to fall behind the character and changing the characters helmet to a different style were pretty easy.

I even sent the art in with a comp showing how I thought the title and type could lay over the piece.

So, when I got this piece back showing me the client's thoughts for the cover layout and a few color changes they were going to make themselves I was a little shocked.

I know I do this for as a job and for a paycheck and I'm being paid to draw what my client's want but this...this I had no words for. I told the client as much and was assured it would look better once it sees print.

But, right now, I have no idea how these are going to turn out.

We shall see what happens.

But seeing this definitely changed the approach I took to the next three covers...

Waiting

I'm sitting here today waiting for approval on some thumbnails I submitted to a client on Friday and I'm not really sure what to do with myself. I don't want to start some new personal project because, hopefully, I'll get approval tonight or tomorrow and have the rest of my week booked solid with a new kids book.

So, I don't know what to do.


I figured now might be a good time to put up some sketches I've done over the last week for really no purpose at all.

One is a simple sketch of a girl, one is a bunch of quick thumbnails for some girly pin-up poses, and the last is the full page where those poses were done.



This way you can see how small these thumbnails really are and how I have some weird need sometimes to fill up a page of my notebook during dinner.

OK, I am off. Maybe I'll watch a movie while I'm waiting.

Have a good one.

Maybe Next Life

While ordering my lunch at Einstein Bagels one day I got to talking to the girl behind the register and she mentioned that she wanted to write songs and be a singer, dancer, actress, performer, etc.

Loving anything creative, especially with art or music, we got to talking about what she wanted to do. She said she had met a "producer" who was setting up a studio in Boulder and offered to produce and mange her. Maybe it's just me but I got a weird feeling about the whole thing. My biggest fear is some guy would take advantage of her and soon be telling her, "I bet you could sing MUCH better if only you'd take all of your clothes off."

So, trying to be nice, I told her if the thing with this guy fell through that I have a home recording studio set up and if she just wanted to record a song I'd be happy to help. I told her I didn't have any industry contacts and couldn't help her in any way with her career but, if she just wanted to record a demo, I could help.

Months went by and, surprisingly, this "producer" flaked out. So, she and I talked about her recording one of her songs. I asked her how she wrote songs, did she play piano or guitar, and what kind of music she had in mind. She couldn't play any instrument and basically wrote lyrics and sang them in a melody. I asked her if she could get me a song of hers recorded on something as simple as a tape player to see what I could so with it.

A few days later she handed me a tape recorder and said she had sung the song really late at night while she was pretty drunk. Perfect, I thought. If there was something I really wanted to do in life I'd make sure to do it late at night and drunk. That would show people how serious I was.

So, I took the tape home and had a listen. This was going to be an interesting challenge.

First I got the tape recording she gave me recorded into the computer. Then I figured out a basic tempo for the song and laid down a computer drum beat and click track. Next, and this was the hard part, I, line by line, cut up her vocals and made them fit the click track and arranged them into some sort of song. Finally, I figured out the chord structure on acoustic guitar and figured out some sort of lead guitar riff.

While miking both my voice and guitar, I played the song through twice, singing and playing guitar on the same track. I panned one take to the left and one to the right. The vocals don't quite match up but it sounded cool so I kept it and then added one more guitar part with the lead guitar riff.

Within 36 hours of her handing me the tape of her singing, I handed her back a basic demo with drums, arrangement, acoustic guitar parts, and me singing.

It was a fun exercise just to see if I could do it and I am still tweaking the song here and there. Once I get her on board we should be able to do a decent demo that she can send out to see what will happen. We will see.

But, for now, here is a track of what she gave me and, below it, what I gave her back.

Enjoy.

Amber's original recording, late at night.

If the streaming player doesn't work you can find the original file HERE.

What Sean turned around in 36 hours based on the above demo.

If the streaming player doesn't work you can find the original file HERE.

On to the Color

The super hero art has been scanned into the computer and the color has been started.

I'm putting up not only the color work in progress of yesterday's piece but also the piece I was inking before the heat turned off and I bunkered down.

So far so good.

Looking at the heroes now, I think I subconsciously took some of their designs from a few Marvel and DC heroes and villains. I guess after growing up with comic books and being asked to draw my own versions of heroes it was inevitable that I'd use some ideas I had already seen before. In the end, though, I think these two are all mine.

I'm enjoying the way these pieces are progressing and once everything is done I'll show you how they all turned out.

But, for now, back to the color. Have a good one!

Hit Somebody! Part 2

I can't believe I had to go all the way back to October to figure out when I originally penciled this piece. Between waiting for approval to ink it, being so sick this last month, and trying to catch up on client work it wasn't until yesterday that I had a chance to sit down and ink this piece.

And, I was really itching to get to it. Honestly, at one point about three or four weeks ago, I was just going to ink the piece before I had the client's approval just because I liked it so much. I thought, even if there are changes, I could always make them later, after I inked it. But, I thought better of it and let it sit until I got approval. And then I got approval with no changes. So, maybe I should have just inked it in the first place and got ahead a bit. Ah well, hindsight is 20/20.

One of the things I've been having problems with lately is that either I got a bad batch of bristol board or maybe my humidifier is affecting the paper I draw and ink on. On more than a few pieces I inked this week the paper really didn't take the ink that well and it led to really rough and chewed up looking lines that took me a while to make look right. It felt like the pencils just dug into the paper when I was drawing and left a really beat up surface on which I had to ink. But, not these super hero pieces. They were so great and so perfect to ink over it just went really fast.

Plus, I think I end up inking so many sports pieces with all kinds of clothes and gear on each character that I forgot how easy it is to simply ink a figure who is pure super hero anatomical muscle. It was really fun to get this piece going and was a blast to finish.

So much so that I took a few photos while I was in the middle of the process.

Now it's on to scanning the piece into the the computer and laying down some color. That is my plan for the day.

On to the color!

From The Vault - South Portland, Maine Fireman Lobster 2004

Here is a piece I did for an old friend of mine from Maine who is a police officer, fire fighter, and an EMT. And, if that wasn't enough, he's now getting his pilots liscense. I think he's doing his best to be a modern day Batman.

He was actually one of the cops on the island I grew up on so I'm sure he has more than a few stories about me from my high school days. It's for that reason that I keep doing pieces like this for him when he asks. If I ever ran for President and some of those stories got out I'd be sunk. So, I do my best to keep him happy.

I'm not sure where this piece finally ended up but I'm always happy to do anything I can to help out the guys in law enforcement, fire fighting, and emergency responders. They do such good work and even things like this I can do to give something back is the least I can do to say thanks.

Plus, I got to draw a giant lobster in a fireman's uniform. When else is anyone going to ask me to do something as fun as that?

Happy December

After weeks of being sick, dealing with broken TVs, getting sick again from food poisoning, and dealing with a management company who said me not getting heat in my place was my fault while, in fact, it was there's, has really put me at a point where I am looking over my shoulder wondering what will happen next.

So, I've been quiet, hiding in my studio, hoping whatever "IT" is will just leave me alone and go on to the next person. And, while hiding, I've been frantically working away trying to get caught up on all the client work I fell behind on while I was sick. So, at least I'm being productive. If all goes well I should be caught up by the end of the weekend.

For my new December blog header I'm using the Mr. Mucho Christmas card design from last year so I won't spoil this year's surprise. But, I promise to put up this year's card design promptly on December 25th.

And, as I hear "IT" walking away from my door I promise to post to the blog a bit more.