Making Good on a Promise: "SMALL DOGS"

Now that all of the excitement from my recent Superman film "A Smallville Man" has quieted down, I can make good on my promise to myself to follow up on another project of mine from a few years ago. It's a children's story called "Small Dogs" that some of you might have even inquired about at one of my convention appearances. If you're a fan of dogs, fun stories, and/or colorful stylized illustrations, then I think you might enjoy it. Stay tuned!

DesignerCon 2013 Booth is Up and Ready to Go!

So I setup my DesignerCon booth today I'm all ready to go for this weekend. If anyone catches this post and is wondering what I am talking about, here's a recap:

DesignerCon is a convention celebrating and showcasing all forms of art and design. It's at the Pasadena Convention Center and is only $5 for tix online or $7 at the door.

I'll be exhibiting artwork, prints, my debut children's book SMALL DOGS all at BOOTH 526. If you're in the area or feel like checking out a cool gathering of artists, then stop on by and say hello.

Hope to see some friends and fans there! Cheers!

Children's book SMALL DOGS back from the printer's!

For the first time ever I will have copies of my children's book SMALL DOGS available for sale next weekend at DesignerCon in Pasadena at the convention center. The books measure at 9 x 9" and are 22 pages, and I'm super happy with the print job. I'll post some never-before-seen artwork from the inside of the book in the coming week, but until then here's some more specific info about the show:

Exhibit Hall A & B

300 East Green Street

Pasadena, CA 91101. 

Tickets are $5 per day pre-order or $7 at the door

I'll be at Booth 526 with copies of the book as well as limited prints of original art and especially from my Batman movie "A Gotham Fairytale." 

Have a great weekend!

DesignerCon 2013 - Prints! Books! & More!

I'm excited to announce that I'll be exhibiting at this year's DesignerCon 2013 in Pasadena, CA on Nov. 9-10. DesignerCon is an annual art and design convention that smashes together toys and designer apparel with urban, underground and pop art.

If you're in the area or already going, feel free to stop by BOOTH #526 where I'll have prints available from a variety of my work, including my most recent Batman video "A Gotham Fairytale." I'm even hoping to have copies of my children's book "Small Dogs" available for sale for the first time! I'll be posting more frequently in the coming days with more details and sneak peaks of the art to be available :)

Bills

"Our Little Secret"

Just a little something from the old dusty digital archives. I was going through one of my art folders entitled "Random" and found this piece. My little Chihuahua character Seth from my "Small Dogs" story makes a cameo here, even though it has nothing to do with my children's book. I hope you like it!

THE GIFT - Children's Book Character Development

I've been spending the last week and a half really experimenting with style for my book. This character painting is the result of my many attempts at playing with texture, graphic shape and line work. I've really been trying to channel a bit of Al Hirschfeld, which is hopefully evident.

I've been incubating this project for a while now, and have had the characters developed since the Summer of 2011. The image below represents early development sketches for this accordion player, which is taken from an earlier post that you can see here.

http://mauartist.blogspot.com/2011/08/gift.html

It's interesting looking back at this older work because I feel I've improved upon the design of the character so much. I elongated his pose, widened his belly and tapered some of his features overall. Looking at the evolution of my thinking and abilities is always fun (and hopefully encouraging), but it always makes me think - "How would I do what I just did one year from now? Two years from now?" It's a vicious cycle, I suppose :)

Hope you enjoyed looking! Happy weekend, everyone!

"THE GIFT" - Children's Book Process Pt 2

As I mentioned in my last post, the next step in my process for creating this next book of mine is to lay out the color script. What I do for this step is I take all my thumbnails and lay them side by side in photoshop. Then I create an equally sized window below it and start laying in some color based on some pre-meditated choices I've already made. This isn't by any means final, but more of an 80% work in progress :)

The best way to imagine a color script is to think about it like a visual soundtrack for your project. Just like a good movie utilizes music to accentuate the highs and lows of a story, so too must the color help serve the emotional weight of your story at any given moment. 

Think of your favorite sad scene - now imagine listening to the music without the context of the movie or dialogue. Chances are you'd still be able to tell that the scene to which that music belongs to is sad. It is the same with color - taken alone without the context of a layout or drawing, the color of any given piece should (hopefully) resonate the emotion behind the overall illustration.

I apologize for the overly censored image above as I am not usually one for obtrusive watermarks or highly edited images. It's not that I'm afraid someone's going to steal my art, it's more that I don't want to give away too much of my story before it's finished. Also, the color script may and probably will change as the process continues, so I don't want to commit to something so forthright here in my blog. Like I mentioned before, this is my first time really documenting my process, so I'm still learning how, when, and what to share. 

If anything, I hope this inspires you all to really think about your color choices in the future. I'm by no means an expert in the area, but it's always helped me make better choices when I'm weighing them against what my narrative intent is.

Happy Weekend!

"THE GIFT" - Children's Book Process Pt 1

Some of you might already be familiar with my first picture book, SMALL DOGS, which I am querying and is currently being reviewed by an agent. Since finishing the artwork for that book a few months ago, I began working on my next picture book - THE GIFT.

THE GIFT is a different kind of story altogether. Whereas my first book is about dogs and the idea that you should never let a physical quality limit your potential, this book is a more poetic story about the relationship between a mother and her son, and how that relationship affects each of their lives.

I'd like to share a bit of my process with this project and see how that differs from my first experience, where I didn't share anything from my book until I was finished with it.

One note about this post: these steps are a general outline. I don't always do everything in this exact order as the creative process is never linear, but it certainly helps when organizing a big project such as a picture book. 

STEP 1 - STORY

It always begins with story. STORY STORY STORY! I remember when this story about a boy and his mother came to me. I was sitting listening to music, and all of a sudden, the story began manifesting itself in my mind. This was years ago! I kept that little seed in my mind until I finally had time to flesh it out, and once I did, I spent several months working on it and letting it simmer. Finally I had a working "draft," something that I could tackle and reshape where necessary.

Here you see how I generally flesh out one of my projects. After writing some drafts in MS Word, I draw very loosely on sheets of paper and I arrange them on a wall (or in this case my closet doors), so that I can see the story progress in front of me. It is as this point that I can edit and figure out my pacing, and what scenes I really need to tell my story.

My biggest obstacle wasn't what the story was, however, but in how I was going to tell it. I wrote three different versions of the same story and finally settled on the one that struck the biggest emotional chord with the help of some very talented friends who read my work and gave me their feedback.

STEP 2 - LAYOUTS

What I do next is nail down my layouts for each page, making sure that the compositions are right. This is one of the funnest parts for me, admittedly. Sorry for the blurriness on the first one, but I don't want to reveal the entirety of the book just yet. You can see what one of the sketches looks like in the next image, which is done very small. The thumbnail you see here is about 1.5" x 1.5" All of the thumbnails fit on one regular sheet of printer paper.

STEP 3 - REFINE LAYOUTS

After I've worked out my entire book in a very rough, simple format, I then begin to refine the layouts that need refinement. Sometimes I'll just paint straight over a rough sketch as I don't need more than the basic shapes. Other times, though, I might want to change a pose, or I might need to add more information to the piece in the drawing stage, in which case I'll refine the layout.

This is an example of the refinement from my thumbnail above. I changed the pose of the performers to improve the composition and made sure my text placement will fit accordingly. Since I'm going to paint over it, I'm not worried at all about doing a nice, pretty drawing. I just need enough of the information in the sketch. I also start accounting for the extra space I'll need for printing bleeds.

STEP 4 - COLOR SCRIPT

That'll be in the next part of this post. I hope you've enjoyed looking at a bit of my process. I feel a bit weird showing this much as I've never done so, but I do it in the spirit of inspiration and sharing that makes the blogosphere so awesome. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section. Just as well, I'd love to hear about your processes and what works or doesn't work for you. Thanks for looking!

Small Dogs - Meet Bella!

Bella is a brown-haired Boxer and leader of the neighborhood big dogs. Her owner thinks she's the sweetest dog ever but in the presence of all the other dogs, she is the biggest and meanest bully there is. She finds small dogs to be a nuisance, and therefore doesn't allow them to hang out in certain parts of the neighborhood. It's only when a brave little Chihuahua named Seth decides to prove her wrong that she ends up butting heads with him and his friends.

In other news, I attended the SCBWI (Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators) Annual LA conference last weekend and it was a blast! I learned so much and I met so many inspiring people. Since I finished writing a revised rough draft months ago for "Small Dogs," I've been busy learning the business side of publishing. While I continue to pursue that, I've been keeping myself busy with another project of mine - a Batman animatic. I'll slowly trickle some stuff from it onto this blog along with some more concept work from my kid's book (and even some sample interior art). Hope everyone else is busy (in a good way) too!

"Small Dogs" - Meet the Dogs!

Meet the dogs! These are the three main characters from my children's book and I'll give a brief intro to each of them.

Seth is the tiny black chihuahua who's rambunctious spirit tends to be at odds with his own insecurity about his size.

Chester is the round loveable Pug who loves "people food" as much as he loves comic books.

Winston is the brown dachshund who prefers watching science documentaries with his owner over digging for bones or running around in the yard.

I realized that writing and storytelling were dormant passions of mine halfway into art school and that's when I began to start studying the craft. But the initial inclination goes back further, as I recently found a comic book that I wrote and illustrated when I was 10 years old. If I ever get brave enough, maybe I'll post something from it, haha. 

I'm in the process of revising my work as I've learned any good writer should, but these characters are pretty much here to stay. Hope you enjoy!

"SMALL DOGS" Children's Book

So if you've been noticing my posts for the last couple of months, I've mentioned that I've been busy working on a children's book project. Well, I'm happy to finally reveal it.

It's called "SMALL DOGS" and follows the story of a bright-eyed Chihuahua named Seth, a chubby comic book crazed Pug named Chester, and a shy but nerdy Dachshund named Winston. Together they try to show a group of big dogs led by a beautiful but vicious Boxer named Bella that you shouldn't judge someone based on their size but by the quality of their character. You can read more about it at the official website here.

It's nothing formal - this is just a dummy copy that I got printed in order to shop it around for representation and publication. The fun parts over - the artwork. I've already started the boring part - all the business and market research - and have still so much to learn. I'm thankful for all of the advice and time various professionals and former teachers have given me regarding the world of publishing. There's so much to learn, but that's part of the fun right? At least that's what I tell myself.

Thanks for stopping by!