disguise

I don't know why, but a Mushroom Bunny came to mind when I saw the word "disguise" for IF this week.  I guess if you're tiny, you've got to work with any camouflage you can get ;)

Oh my friends, Disney week passed with lots of laughs, creativity, and catching up time with friends and family.  Now, I'm getting ready for a work/play trip to Boston and Ireland.  Once again, this blog will be entry-less for a while, but I promise to bring back some sketches from my travels.

Until then, here's a model sheet of Ben, one of the characters from the picture book I've been hired to illustrate:

 

I ended up using completely different poses for Ben in the story, but this was a good process of finalizing his look and personality.  You can get a sense of the art style: strong inked lines, solid paint style for the characters, and looser paint style for the background (ex. rocking chair).  I hope to share more of the process soon!

swell

I guess this bear felt that a taste of honey was worth a face full of swelling stings.  I don't know if I feel the same.  Needless to say, I was inspired by Winnie the Pooh, but I wanted to take a more realistic approach of what would happen if you started poking into bee hives.

I've been busy preparing for a week of conferences and conventions, so I had to do this week's illustration pretty quickly.  That's why the style is a little more rough.  It's going to be crazy busy for the next couple of weeks -- but definitely a good kind of crazy.  Don't know when my next post will be, but I promise it shall be soon!

imperfect

 

Dr. Horrible is definitely an imperfect villain -- which makes the musical perfectly entertaining!  I figure I might as well illustrate the "hero" of the story since I illustrated the villain last week.   

To be honest, this is my second pass at a Dr. Horrible illustration.  I did another version a few months back:

As you can see, the composition is the same but the style is very different since I'm now playing around with a more painterly look.  I don't know about you, but I think it's an improvement :)

In other news, I've been working hard at illustrating my first official picture book project.  Working with the author has made me truly appreciate the art of collaboration.  With our combined efforts, we're able to find creative solutions that I wouldn't have thought of on my own.  We're almost done figuring out the layout of each page and I'll be moving forward with the final illustrations soon (gulp!).  I hope to share some of the artwork here soon, so keep a look out!

obsession

I can't think of someone more obsessed with himself than Captain Hammer from Dr. Horrible.   What's Dr. Horrible you ask?  My dear, you are missing out.  It's got music and mayhem:  my favorite combination!)

In other news, I'm currently in a contest to win a new Wacom tablet.  Trust me, I could use one.  As the Brits say, it would be "ace" of you to click on this link and vote for my illustration! 

Lastly, my story Timid Tabatha was featured in this month's Parenting on the Peninsula.  Click on their "current issue" and scroll through to read it.  They even included one of my old illustrations of Tabatha :)