Finally.... I got my three rainstorm sketches finished! Huzzah!

The real trick here was trying to make the character consistent in each. It isn't perfect, but I think I did it. The expression is different in each one, but I think the main facial proportions are consistent.

This character features in a dummy book I'm working on, but these illustrations probably won't make it into the final story. These were just an exploration of the character and style for the book.

Its funny how, when I was sketching this character, I tried many different looks--straight hair, curly hair, long hair, short hair, dark skin, medium skin, light skin. But there was a look I kept coming back to that just felt right. Somehow, she ended up looking a lot like my little girl--plus a few years. She just needs to be blonde :-). I guess it makes sense that she's the one I'd draw, since I look at her every day.

And its funny that after these sketches were already done, we had a few rainy days here. We put on her rubber boots and went out with her, and she had just as much fun splashing in the puddles and looking around at the wet world as I drew her doing here. Its so great to experience new things through a kid's eyes.

Here is how the final piece (the middle one) progressed to finish. I always think it's interesting to see how an illustration looked at the beginning.

Remember this?

Well, I finally got around to finalizing one of my other sketches of this character.

Keeping a character and style consistent is harder than it might seem! Especially since there were months between when I did these. I am catching tiny things to tweak even as I post this... so there will probably be updated versions of these in the future, when I get the last one done and I can edit all three side-by side. I hope to get the third image done soon... ish. Because life with a newborn makes getting things done... slow. And unpredictable. But very very satisfying.

Well, we moved.

Which isn't to say that everything has been taken out of boxes now. Nope. There is definitely more progress to be made in that area. But this house is feeling more and more like a home, and we're figuring out how we want things to go here. It feels good.

And I'm finally finding time to get back to WORK again.

The dummy I mentioned in my last post has still been swimming around in my mind and I've even found moments to work on it. Over the last few weeks, I've worked on getting to know the main character. Here are a few quick snapshots of sketches that I grabbed from my phone:

Next step is to scan, fix, and create a final illustration of one or all of them. I think I want to put one on the back of my next post card. Which one should it be?

Theres someone I'd like you to meet--or should I say, someones.

These are the friendly monsters! (If you follow my instagram, you've already met them :-) They star in my latest picture book dummy. This is one of those ideas that hit at 4am (I was up thanks to a hungry baby) and just WOULDN'T LEAVE ME ALONE until I put it on paper. I jotted down a few lines and then was finally able to get a bit of sleep.

The first draft came out pretty easily. I let it sit, did some edits, and then I sent it off to a few different friends (and the 12x12 community) to get feedback. I love having different places to get feedback from, because I feel that when I just get it from one critique group they hear the first person's comments and then everyone just ends up agreeing with that person--not always, but fairly frequently. I like having different places to get feedback so people are thinking up their comments independently--I feel they're more helpful that way.

I don't know where I first heard this thought on critique, but its something I generally live by: If one person tells you something, its an opinion and you can ignore it if you choose. If two or more tell you independently that it is a problem (not just critique group partners chiming in, people critiquing who don't have any access to the comments of the other) then it is something you need to take a look at.

In the case of this story, having multiple critiques... didn't backfire, per se, but it did give me directly contradicting advice. From one friend, "There is too much X! I think you should take out X completely." From another "The X is nice, but I think you need even MORE X."

Oh, the joys of navigating critiques. I've at least got plenty to think about with this story, and I'll do my best to be true to what I loved about that idea at 4am.

As far as the art goes, I'm trying a slightly different style here, and LOVING it. Seriously, why didn't I try working this way before! I'm still using my cutaway linocut vector process, but really minimizing the linework. Instead of starting with the lines and then filling in the shapes and colors, I'm starting with the big shapes and adding lines only where necessary to define the form. I'm using the shadow layer to create texture instead of the line layer as I usually do. I really like how it came out. I think I'll definitely still do linework-based illustrations, but I want to do more of this approach as well.

As usual, progress images of how this one came together. What do you think?

I said I'd do it, and I did. Earlier today, I submitted the dummy of my story FINN'S FEET to the Little, Brown Emerging Artist Award. Thanks to all who commented on my last entry to help me find a title. Now my little story is going off into the world...

It was a big project, and the housework definitely got neglected as the deadline got closer, but it's done. It feels so good!

I only saved progress images of one of the illustrations, though. I was just trying to get them done as quickly as I could, so saving out periodically as I usually do just didn't happen.

This is a good start for my goals this year of pushing forward with my writing and illustrating this year, and actually submitting my work as well. Before doing this project I thought I mostly wanted to illustrate other people's stories, but putting this together helped me to realize that I actually really like creating my own stories too. I will definitely be doing more!

...a character who has been living in my head for a few years now. I finally have his story put together in a dummy book, and after I complete a couple more example illustrations, I'll be entering it in this contest.

I have one small problem, though. I'm having a hard time thinking of a title.

What would you call a story about a boy with very long feet? Any ideas? :-)

I'll be heading up to the Green Leaves SCBWI retreat tomorrow, and though I have a couple stories in progress, I really don't feel they are ready for an official critique--I'm going for a portfolio critique, and I'll continue to work on my stories until I have them in a good place.

Speaking of getting them in a good place, I do think it's time to start figuring out how the story will flow and get some thumbnails, particularly for my wordless story. I searched online for a nice dummy book layout to print, but didn't see one to my liking. Either they were colored (why??? I just need some squares) or they didn't have space to write notes, which I wanted. So like any self respecting graphics-savvy person, I just made it myself. And I thought I'd make these available to anyone else who might be looking for the same things I was in a dummy layout.

Feel free to print and use these as you need. If you like them feel free to share, but I would appreciate if you kept my information on them intact. Happy sketching!