Christmas Card for the Marcums

 

This holiday season was a busy one for me with lots of traveling, visits and excursions.  I didn't have nor make the time to do my own Christmas card this year but I was lucky enough to help in creating a Christmas card for someone else.  My long time friend from college, Julia Marcum, and her husband Chris Marcum wanted to do something fun and less traditional for a Christmas card.  They wanted a caricature of themselves and their darling daughter Greta to grace the front of their Christmas card.  At first, time wasn't on my side and I tried to tell Julia that I wouldn't have time for this, but she informed me they would just find another illustrator.  I didn't want them to get a crappy Christmas card so I decided to do it myself after all and I'm very glad I did.  Julia says the card was a hit with her family and friends and I must say I'm very pleased with the results myself.

Read Julia's take on the Christmas card on her own popular blog, www.chrislovesjulia.com.  Great blog if you like art, family or interior decorating.

Christmas Cards 2011

The top image is from a Christmas card I made for my parents last year and meant to share but never got around to it.  I made cards for each of my siblings' families, altering them slightly to include each sibling with his/her spouse.  The second image shows all the other siblings and spouses.  Can you pick out which ones are which?

Third Grade Detectives Cover #4

Here is the fourth cover I did for the series, Third Grade Detectives.  The second and third book covers aren't as interesting in my opinion because I was still getting the style down.  Plus the lighting is more interesting for this fourth book cover.  Funny thing though, I feel I got a little better with each book cover I finished.  That being said, I can still see mistakes now that I would like to fix.  Oh well.  The first five books or so have replaced the old ones in places like Amazon.com.  You should check them out, though you can't see a larger version of the cover since it is still linked to the old art work.  I'll post more of these new book covers as they are released.

More Mountain Goblins

At long last, the second half to page three from my untitled comic.  I took the saturation down a bit for the colors and added in a texture for slightly more interest.  Because of the natural orientation of monitors these days, I'm thinking page 4 will be more horizontal to fit the ratio better.  Most popular web comics that have lengthy text are horizontal anyways.  I wish this comic was something people could enjoy more regularly, but so far it's just a fun thing I do on occasion.

More Progress and More Color

Well I received some positive feedback from the last comic I posted so I thought I would make better use of my free time and continue working on this story while I have the time and the desire. The third page was split in half, so here is only half of page 3 (plus it reads better when blogger enlarges it). I wanted this much to be in color so you could get an idea of the colors I had in mind for the goblins and what the sword would look like as well. I doubt I'll do all future pages in color, but for now you can enjoy the possibilities. Hopefully, I'll be posting the other half of this page soon. Just a heads up, the main characters of my intended story are not these goblins. They're merely setting the stage for what's ahead.

Secret Project Revealed!

So, the book covers that I have been working on are close to being printed so I have permission to post one of the covers.

This is the cover for the first in the Third Grade Detectives series of books. They're short reads and intended, I think, for first graders. Not a bad read as far as first grade material goes. I'm only redoing the covers of the books and the inside illustrations stay the same (drawn by a different illustrator, not me). The publishing company I've been working with is Simon & Schuster, and working with them has been great! They're kind, understanding and polite. It's been a great opportunity working with them and I'm glad I can finally share this piece (though I finished this cover a year or so ago).

Enjoy!

Trekking Along a Year Later

So I've decided that this story of the goblins in the snow will merely be a drawing and inking exercise for me since I obviously don't have enough time and desire to get these out in any timely fashion. A year. It has taken me a year to post a second page to the story. At this rate, I should easily have ten pages by the time I'm 40. What a goal!

Enjoy the drawings (I know I did. I inked these initially quite a while ago, and when I came back to finish the last square I was actually pleased with most of the inking).