« August 2007 | Main | October 2007 »

September 26, 2007

The Domesticated Four

Thumbnails

There have been a lot of folks who have been asking me what my follow up to "The Guild of Geniuses" would be and now that I've got the ball rolling to a certain degree I thought I'd share with you a graphic novel I'm doing with Arthur A. Levine Books called "The Domesticated Four" (Originally titled 'The Domesticated Six"). This monster project was THE MAIN REASON why I left the game industry. It had been signed on back in 2004 but many factors put this book on hold.

1) My editor was busy putting out two Harry Potter Books.
2) My show, "The Replacements" was being pitched and eventually picked up by Disney Channel
3) I was still working full time at a video game company
4) The birth of my son and the first year of sleepless nights
5) My long comittment to Otto Undercover and Walter Kitty
6) Various freelance projects

I originally had a draft done back in late 2006 that took ONE FULL YEAR for me to thumbnail out and it ended up becoming 500 pages long. Well, that was too long of a story and they wanted it cut down to 200 pages because of cost and readability. I HAD TO CUT 300 PAGES?!?!? My editor and I have never really done a graphic novel before and so it's been a real learning experience for me. I've been reading up on all sorts of books on how to do comics and after reworking the manuscript I think I've got it working. Well, Harry is over now, and it's full speed ahead for me. Now, it's just a matter of me getting things down on paper and making this thing happen coupled with the huge workload I have working on other projects.

I'll be putting up a production blog in a few days connecting to my site and you can check up on the progress on a regular basis. It'll have all sorts of funny little tidbits about animals and superheroes and so forth and I figure that will also be a motivation for me to get things going.

What's the plot you ask?

All I can tell you is that it's about superhero housepets and sibling rivalry.

September 21, 2007

Books, lectures, and more

I heard this great quote on NPR a few days ago "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life"

In the last few weeks I've been contacted by many folks and it's for the first time in this freelance career that I've realized that I made the best decision in my life to leave the video game industry behind me.
I recently agreed to illustrate 4 books by 3 different publishers (I'll make formal announcements of a few of the titles in a few weeks). As much as it relieves me of any financial concerns the best part of all this is that I'm actually doing what I love to do and I keep myself very busy doing so. Next Thursday I will also be doing some guest lecturing and speaking in an illustration class at Cal State Northridge and in November and I will also be taking a week speaking at a school in Virgina Beach, Virginia. I'm so looking forward to the experience I've been doing some photo and video documentation of my work process and environment and I'll try to edit it together a post it up online in a few weeks.

In the mean time, to all you creative folks out there. Keep on truckin'!

September 17, 2007

Me as a Simpsons character

Simpson
Here is yet another Simpsons character thrown into the blogosphere. I made this character version of myself from the movie website about 2 or 3 months ago and never posted it. Well, no point in letting my hard work go to waste unseen!

September 12, 2007

Calendar Club

Cc1

It's been radio silence here since I've been swimming in a mountain of work. I just recently took on a new education book project to illustrate. I know I should be working on my graphic novel or pitching more shows but, somehow, after leaving the video game company I find myself with even less time to work on my own stuff. Anyway, the above pic is an interior piece for the "Calendar Club" series from Scholastic. I used to never be able to put this kind of quality into my work so I guess now all that free time I have not having a video game job are paying off. In other news, I'm actualy going to be doing some travelling! Some of you know, I'll be going to New York for the Original Art show in New York in October, but recently, I was asked to speak at a school in Virgina Beach, VA for a whole week in November. Hey, it's good for the business. Now if I can just get the time to work on my graphic novel.....

September 09, 2007

A new family member

Gesso

My wife and I, mostly my wife, are animal lovers. We have a bird, a rabbit, and now welcome the newest member of our family. A cat which we've named "Gesso". For all you non artist types gesso is a paint primer that you use on a surface to give it a bit of a grittiness to hold the paint. We adopted him from the Pasadena Humane Society on Saturday and we feel good about saving an animal from the rough streets of LA