WIP Wednesday - Workshop Sketches

This past weekend was my 2D Concept Design TLCWorkshop - with 2 awesome designers from Weta Workshop in New Zealand (of The Hobbit movies designing fame) and a guest visit by Iain McCaig (well-known, super-star, Star Wars designer)(You can read more specifics about this workshop starting here).

Now I really don't have much desire to do concept work for films, but I found the whole process they shared with us fascinating. And tried to learn and apply elements that actually work well for illustration. I'm a strong believer in cross-genre learning. So much is applicable, and broadens one's understanding and artistry. (Part of this learning entailed doing a little impromptu sculpting so that I could picture the elements in three dimensions).

My efforts were a bit hampered by spraining my wrist (of my drawing hand of course) a couple of weeks ago. Could only draw in spurts. However, I used those spurts to redesign the iconic elements of latest fantasy portrait I'm working on. With the input of Paul Tobin, Nick Keller and Iain, I felt I learned a bunch about pushing design elements past my normal ruts/comfort zones. Ways to incorporate even *more* thematic elements and ways to research source material to help with it all.

It really was a fabulous weekend. Great class members, great learning curve, *fabulous* instructors, who are terrific artists and even more amazing humans. (If you haven't attended a TLCWorkshop, you really ought to treat yourself. They're pretty great, if I do say so myself).

WIP Wednesday - sample sketch

Okay, okay, I know it's Thursday but I didn't have this as done as I'd like yesterday ...

...Sample sketch for a potential job. We'll see if they like it.

S.I.S.

Or - Stuck In Studio.

Painting myriads of puppies...

Back later...

Sketching in funny places...

I've been all sorts of places that are *not* the studio this week...

A couple of nights ago, I was tagged to chaperon the daughter and some friends at a Colbie Caillat concert at a downtown refurbished-warehouse venue. No chairs, packed with (much taller) people and meltingly hot - after an hour I gave up...

...and walked down the street to an air-conditioned, well-lit location. With chairs. And working surfaces. :-) I had several hours to kill - so worked on some inital roughs for the next book interior -

-as well as playing with some more of the thumbnails of the winter promo. There were some ideas that I wanted to explore further to see if there was enough potential to warrant refining... I felt like all those 'real' artists who work in cafes and coffee shops, but I was somewhere even better!


Ah, Krispy Kreme - thank you for your cool, brightly lit interior which comes stocked with donuty goodness (the seasonal 'pumpkin spice' donuts are quite tasty) - and that you let me sit at your tables for three hours...


The next evening she and I attended a musical at the Village Theatre. Here's another spot for sketching in the dark. :-) Couldn't really see much in my tiny Moleskine as I tried to draw, but I enjoyed the costumes and sets and some of the profiles, so wanted to see if I could at least make a mental note...


It was a cute production. You can see some snippets here.

Drawing with donuts. In the dark. That's how I roll...

Sunday Sketching -

Tried to push the stylizing a bit. (there were kids sitting behind me watching. They didn't think I captured the essence of the people I was drawing at all... Needs work apparently).

Also did another "Caroling"/winter promo idea sketch. It's fairly simple. And decorative (which I always seem to like). Still has a medieval flair, even if not particularly fantastical... I like this better than the other approaches thus far...

Concept Sketches - Winter promo -

Very rough, and currently full of Fail...

I had to sit through a couple of hours of meetings this week, so of course that means I sketched (I do listen. Really. I even take notes. I just also draw). My agents are asking us to submit a holiday self-promo piece, the theme is "Caroling".

For my children's-illustration-genre-prone brain, that could mean young angels...

...or Victorian mice?

..or how about something that could potentially cross-over into the fantasy market?

..but my brain seems to stall out here. Boring, boring compositions....

... and the contents get younger the more variations I attempt... alas...

Let's brain-storm from here, shall we? Taking suggestions.....

Book Cover #11 - WIP (ribbons and roses)

This is the cover drawing that would never end! Took forever this week to finish it up.

In my initial thumbnail, I attempted to have a significantly different pose from the previous two. However, the publishers did not like this one, so re-draws were required. I had already worked out the color palette and elements to include....

So I went reference hunting - for both references for the elements I already knew that I needed, and much searching for rearing, 3/4, tucked-head horses... Since flying-horse-pose reference is not so easy to come by, it take compiling what you can come up with and for me at least, quite a bit of working and re-working until the anatomy feels somewhat believable...?

...And of course, here is the flower featured on this cover. Herb-lore for the day: An Anglo-Saxon herbal of the 11th century speaks of a conserve of rose petals "taken in the morning and fasting at night, it strengthenest the hearte and taketh away the shakings and tremblings thereof."

I grow very old heirloom roses. They are not the most beautiful varieties, but their scent is heavenly and intense, their petals make for very flavorful candied garnishes and the most fragrant syrup you've ever tasted, and they have huge, plump hips. Decorative *and* tasty (jelly, tea, etc...) These wild roses above have been fun to draw and made me acutely aware of the occasional waft of deliciously intense rose fragrance from the roses that grow beneath my studio window...

Here is the revised sketch, which was approved-

-and here, at LONG last, is the finished cover drawing...

Three down, one more to go.

Anatomy of a Cover...

A few days ago, I posted pictures of the covers for the last 8 Wind Dancer books. Since I am working on the next four covers right now, I thought I might show you a bit of the process. The first step is to come up with an approach that will unify this set of four covers, while still making them distinct from the previous sets. After a number of thumbnails exploring different options, we settled on close-up floral backgrounds.

- eventually we refined this to be more of a 'portrait' of the horse rather than a full-body view as the previous covers had been.

That decided, I did a round of rough mock-ups of all four covers, with varying poses and flora.

And then some color thumbs to sort out the various palettes and make sure they are appealing as a group.

Here's the next batch of refining the cover drawing for cover #9 - with a requested pose revision on the right.

The next round - fairly refined drawing to submit to Breyer for an anatomy check and approval.

And then a large, clean, refined drawing ready to scan, print and then paint. (Who knows where you can buy translucent drawing vellum by the roll? I'm currently enamored of doing this stage of drawing on that surface, but the vellum I can find by the pad is never quite large enough).

It takes me longer when I switch gears between drawing and painting, so I'm going to take all four covers to this level and then will print and paint them all at the same time.

So after eleventy-hundred dandelion petals, it's on to dew-drops and Lady's Mantle for book #10!

Concept Sketches -

We've received our assignment list to choose from for the IMC next month.
There are three that I am interested in at least some preliminary exploration -

The first one is The Lady of the Lake (from the King Arthur mythology cycle)

That could be fun - Celtic knotwork in the border, hand lettering, lots of floaty hair...

The second one that appealed to me was a "far futuristic high-tech 0r steam-punk alt-version of the Wizard of Oz". No high tech for me, but steam punk would be fun. Mechanized flying monkeys anyone?

The last was a children's manuscript, written by the esteemed Jane Yolen of a toothfairy story - where the 'manager' had to make the nightly tooth run. Given all the steampunk outfits I was looking at, I thought it'd be fun to make him that sort of guy as well,

Now to pick one and develop further...