This Week in the Sketchbook : Character Design

Wrapping up the finals on the second Rockh... wait. Did we announce there's gonna be...? Urgh. Um...

Wrapping up the finals on some project and moving into September. September is "get proposals knocked out for publishers month." I have... four... books I am putting together.

I don't normally post works in progresses, especially before someone's called dibs on them, but since this is just a a character and you know nothing about him or what he's doing, I thought I'd show him to you.

No guarantees he's going to end up like this at all, but here's his journey so far.

(My big money scanner is not calibrated and I am having probs getting the blue out.)

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Thumbnail


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Why is it these first pencil thumbnail sketches are some of my favorites? My most favorite of Rock from Animal Band is just a quick collection of lines. Can't even see much about him. But there's an energy, and, somehow the soul of the character's there. If that makes any sense.

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Tightening up


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He's looking a bit like Christopher Robin here. Maybe it's the short pants.

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Meh.


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Just warming the pencil up here. Playing with some elements. Mostly his clothes. Very stiff drawing. (I often notate as I am drawing along.)

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Pushing the abstract.


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Playing with more simplified shapes. He's too old here... needs to be softened to be a kid's book. (Hieroglyphic feet!)

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More there-er


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Softer. More realistic. (TOO realistic?) Ok.

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Looking for a balance. Looking for who this kid is. Not sure, yet. The story is brand new and developing. Missing some of the pieces. But it's coming together.

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NOTE: NOT THE FINAL. GOING BACK TO THE BEGINNING SKETCH AND FOLLOWING IT DOWN ANOTHER PATH.

Big Pimpin'

Larger : Click Image Tone Sketch

I know. There have been pimp bots. It's been done.

This is not ANY pimp bot. This is Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, king of all 50's robots—and in my book—top of the heap of all robots.

He was in my sketchbook this week because of an AWOL Forbidden Planet poster.

This Week In the Sketchbook

From a personal project. Not even close to right.

Rockhead : Character Development

Here's some of the steps the The Incredible Rockhead (previous entry) went through on their way to final.

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Here's Chip and Spencer. Their first drawing.


The boys here are a couple of years younger than they ended up being in the book. According to the art director, Chip wasn't "awkward pre-teeny enough." They wanted him to be a little more... that.

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Troy is the bully.

This is the sort of who guy picked on me a couple of times when I was in junior high.

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Here's how Rockhead came to be himself.


He's a skinny kid, but his head is this gigantic hunk of rock.

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The Incredible Rockhead!!!

Most of what I do is wrapped up in NDA's.*

It means I don't get to tell anyone what I am working on.

"What are you doing?"

"Illustrating a graphic novel."

"Oh yeah?"

"I can't tell you about it."**

The newest has hit (online stores), so now I get to share.

Little ditty called "The Incredible Rockhead."

It's for Stone Arch Books, which falls under Capstone Publishing.


Like I said, it's a graphic novel. If you don't know what a graphic novel is, it's a long comic book. This one is written for the grade school set (grades 1-3).

I drew this one, didn't write it. The writing was done by the brilliant Scott Nickel. Bob Lentz—the art director—designed the book and it is out of this world (I wish I'd had such cool stuff to look at when I was a kid). He worked to dial in an old school, Golden Age kind of look. Also, it's available in hard cover (paperback is on the way, I've been told.)

Enough talk. Time for drawings.

Here's the character line up:



Here's my favorite panel from the book:



And here's the cover as a teensy-tiny image (it's the biggest size I can find):



I had a great time on the book. Learned a lot. We're already rolling on the second. (It's even better.)

*Non Disclosure Agreement
**All together now—"I'd have to kill you."

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Read more about the characters here.

You should buy the book. Go here.

Stone Arch Book's page on the book here.

Blog Was Down Last Week

Because of a bonehead move on my part—formatting the new blog code from the "view source" code instead of the actual HTML code in the Template—I futzed up the Draw Blog.

I think we're back on track.

New stuff coming this week.

With Apologies to Enrico Casarosa

Below is the final piece from Comic Con.

It's a travelogue in the style of Enrico Casarosa's book—hence the title—which is mentioned in the entry (with a link to Amazon below).



Click Image to Enlarge.

Buy The Venice Chronicles.

'61 Mitsubishi 500

I included the previous link showing some cars I thought were amazing.

When it came time to draw a car for the new (self published) Super Rufus book, I knew the one I wanted.


'61 Mitsubishi 500 || Click to Image Enlarge


And my translation of the car. It's a little off proportion.

Source for the cars.

Like cartoon cars but only real!*

As a kid I never drew cars. If I had seen these I would have.

* Coolest cars ever and I am too tall for every one.

Carry Water the Way Man was Meant to: In Metal!

Plastic bottles are killing the earth.

KILLING IT!

15 penguins die a day because of our drinking from plastic bottles.*

But now you can carry water like a soldier in WWII.

And with this handy unit, I can carry everything I need—my iPhone and life sustaining water.


(Personally, I think this is brilliant.)

* Completely unfounded research. We don't know that plastic bottle use doesn't kill 15 penguins a day.

Still Kickin'

Tired of big strong men kicking sand in your face and taking your girlfriend?

No more, my friend! What you need is Dynamic-Tension!

That's the comic out of the back of comic books back in the day. Turns out, the program is still around, making mighty men out of weaklings.

What is it? "The program includes both physical exercises, nutritional information plus FIVE FREE gifts including techniques and skills in Boxing, Wrestling, Jujitsu and Karate, Hand Balancing and Feats of Strength." (From the website.)

From an article in the Smithsonian this month, I learned that this program is not based on weight training, but on muscle training using your own body to transform itself.

Charles Atlas was a self-made strong man, and credited with bringing fitness awareness to a higher level. According to Smithsonian, none other that Ghandi himself wrote in to learn more about Atlas's program.