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).

Praying with Friends

This is another illustration I did for Friend magazine this year. I believe it was for September or October. It was a fun assignment as you can see. I typically enjoy drawing peoples eyes, but since this article was about praying all the kids had to have their eyes closed. I still think it turned out pretty good. I've also been busy in my free time illustrating 4 book covers for a young kids book series. Once they get printed, I'll be able to post a few as examples. Hopefully they print sometime before spring, if not sooner.

Marriage and Death

So after 6 months I finally found time to ink the comic that was posted back in February as a work in progress. Adding color takes even more time so I just stopped after inking. Nothing really more to say other than I wish I could post more, but I'm either too lazy or too distracted to find time to draw/paint or otherwise create something cool to post online. Thanks to those few who patiently wait for new posts though.

Long time no write

I think it's obvious to everyone that I'm not an avid blog updater. Sure, I could have posted lots of things in the past 6 months, but with Facebook taking up most of that energy, this blog doesn't get much attention.

This here is something I did for the Friend magazine earlier in the spring. Fun article, semi-fun illustrations. This one here is actually a combination of two illustrations that I thought would go well together as one. Want the whole story? Go buy your copy of the Friend in LDS bookstores.

Hopefully I can be posting more interesting things more often in the future. Thanks guys!

Work in Progress

This past month or so I've been working on a book cover and with my other job I haven't had a lot of time to do comics like I sometimes do. I was thinking I'd be able to ink and finish the comic by the end of the week or so, but I couldn't really wait so I've decided to post a work in progress version of the latest comic. When I do eventually finish the comic, I'll most likely post it next to the work in progress one so those interested can compare any differences between my rough pencils and my finished inked line. I apologize to any avid and patient fans who have long awaited for another comic.

Overzealous

So I talked the talk, but I most definitely could not walk the walk. I'm referring to my hopes of making an online web based comic strip, similar to an online graphic novel. I had planned out several characters, story lines and enough material for this supposed comic to go on for a long time, but with a full time job that already had me drawing and designing all day, a weekly full page comic was really not feasible to fit into my schedule. As much as I wanted it to happen, I don't think it will. If anything, I'll at least make a more dedicated website for my gag type comic strips that I already post on this blog. If I don't have time for a fully rendered and executed comic strip then I would at least make some sort of quick and simple comic just to get out the various ideas I have but never have time to do. Stay tuned for a slightly less zealous attempt at a weekly web comic sometime in the future...Or not.

Oh, and here is the first page of the graphic novel type of weekly web comic I started. Sucks to read an unfinished story, I know.