Tigers by Sherry Been

Seems like I did these illustrations a long time ago, but the book is finally coming out this spring. Here's a couple of spreads.

There's rumors of a follow-up book. I can't divulge the next animal but can give you a hint, it's the tallest land animal, has spots and lives in Africa.

It's nice to finally see the finished project and hopefully the kids will enjoy it too.

Progressing from Rough Concept to Final Illustration

Working on a recent educational project, my client liked my black and white style but needed a full color illustration. They suggested that I colorize my black and white illustrations, same idea as hand tinting a black and white photo. So here's what we came up with, from the initial rough, to b&w to final full color illustration.

Abigail's Secret by Montrew Dunham

I've been fortunate to illustrate a few of Ms. Dunham's historical fiction chapter books for the Patria Press series. This time she's coming out with a novel, Abigail's Secret. It's based in the 1930's depression era and it's intriguing to parallel those days with today's economy and politics. On top of that it's just a fun mystery that you can't put down.
Here's an excerpt from Chapter One...
"Almost all week had been unusual. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as President of the United States just last Saturday on March 4, 1933 which had seemed so very special. And then the next day he proclaimed that all the banks in the country were to be closed. A bank holiday!
Abigail frowned as she thought about it... A holiday had a good sound... but for them there was nothing good about this holiday. It meant that they had no money!"

Once Upon A Time...

...there were three little pigs, and the rest as they say is history. Here's a new image for an old story.

Illustrator Workshop at Mamie Doud Eisenhower Library

Some might think the best part of being an illustrator is drawing all day. But my favorite job is working with future book writers and illustrators. This was a presentation/worshop at Mamie Doud Eisenhower Library in Broomfield, CO. I gave a quick talk about book illustration, did a sample sketch and then we got down to work. This was one of the hardest working, most creative, talented and fun group of kids I've worked with. Thank you, Lesley Clayton and the rest of staff at the Library for making this such a fun event!

Character Development

The holidays are over so back to work now. I'm just starting to play around with character development on a new project so we'll see how this evolves. One nice thing about working on the Cintiq is it allows me to place various characters on different layers to highlight them. Can you see the difference here? In the top image I've screened the two bikers at 70%, making the main character pop more. The second image is the exact same, but the resolution is 100% for all levels.