2014 Christmas Card Video

Merry Christmas From the Grodeks!

Operation SUGAR

I've posted the final pieces to my portfolio. Also, I've been seeing everything so big on screen but posting only little jpgs, so here are some close-ups to show the watercolor and paper texture—Enjoy!

World War Toothfairy

I wanted to do a little illustration for a baby-shower gift for a friend of mine. She's from Mexico and at some point we had discussed how in Mexico the tooth fairy is a mouse (!) which is cute or creepy depending on how you look at it.

Either way I thought the tooth fairy fighting Ratoncito Pérez over a tooth would do the trick. Below you'll find the final piece along with some quick process sketches.

Outdoor Mood Lighting

Again, I won't know until all the pieces are fully colored, but I'm thinking I'm going to want some dreamier, sunset tones rather than just the "true hues." Here's an unfinished example with the original:

A Few More Fully Colored Pieces

These are not finished pieces... just the full scans retouched and fully colored to a "true-hue" which mostly means what's blue is blue and what's red is red. Once everything is finished to this degree, I'll go back in and re-color for style and consistency.

Digitized Watercolor

This piece will likely still change as the others get closer to complete, but here's the general direction.

Watercolor pre-retouching

Here's the same illustration as before, but fully colored. The next step is retouching, which will include extensive color correcting. I'm also going to do the line work digitally with my Wacom tablet because I don't like the line quality I'm getting on the paper I chose.

#nofilter, #nothanks

I've decided I'm going to cheat. I started painting my drawings and while I'm getting results I like, I also keep thinking of things I can do digitally to really make these pieces special. So while I'm doing watercolor for each piece, I'm also going to be adjusting color, contrast, lighting, etc. in photoshop. Above is an in progress of the watercolor without any retouching.

Homecoming

I have questions about a big reveal. Does the story need one? Would it be better to lead with an overview shot to provide context. Is this image an it-was-all-a-dream cop-out? I'm not sure, but for now, for me personally on this project, it's a helpful framing device and a nice way to provide some closure to a simple story about borrowing sugar from a neighbor.

Watercolor the Grass

Color! After so many pencil sketches, a little color is so refreshing. I wanted to break out my watercolors and do a little test before I moved onto my official illustrations. I know of things I'll do different, but I'm going to try and keep things this loose. I'll probably include more whitespace.

Suburban Lady of the Woods á la Peter Jackson

Despite Billy being straying from his purpose, his journey comes to an end when Ben's mother arrives with sugar.

I like to think that Billy's mom called Ben's mom to be on the lookout as soon as Billy left the house. It's likely Billy made it from his front door to Ben's front porch within a couple of minutes before Ben distracted him. Ben's mom knew of Billy's task though, so she arrives like a magical lady of the woods to bestow Billy with the gift of sugar. I'm hoping to light this scene extra cinematically.

Adopt a Basset Hound Sphinx!

I wanted Billy to confront a pet in his neighbor's yard, and I wanted the pet to be some sort of adversary, but I didn't want him to be scary or aggressive. I thought a sphinx could be cool and give Billy a mental challenge. A basset hound seemed perfect because it's ears could have that Egyptian headpiece look.

To ensure the scene wouldn't look too much like just a regular yard, I chose to add agave plants in bloom. Agave blossoms look straight out of Dr. Seuss or some alien planet. I'd say they're more foreign looking here than they are in real life.

Medieval Fantasy meets Sci-fi

Billy's friend and neighbor, Ben, has fashioned himself Robin Ben Quick. He's the consummate woodsman, adventurer, and rebel knight. I liked the idea of Billy running into friend who's inhabiting his own different fantasy reality, but once they're together, their separate realities blend seamlessly together. Who care's that Ben is medieval and Billy is all future? The kids certainly don't.

World's Best Treehouse

Of course, Robin Ben Quick lives in the coolest tree fort there ever done was.

Drought-resistant Space Cactus

As Billy leaves his house, and overlooks endless plains (his lawn) he's flanked by two cactuses that exist somewhere between between fantasy and houseplant-next-door.

Irrigation System of Doom

This spartan looking piece will be Billy fleeing acid from monolithic black lawn sprinklers. I'm hoping to execute much of the piece in watercolor, hence the lack of pencil line. Here's an example of Billy not necessarily being small, but his surroundings being larger than life. The grass of his lawn is taller than him and the pop-up sprinkler heads are now gigantic—and toxic for no particular reason!

Time For a Costume Change

Billy's suit is destroyed by the acidic lawn sprinklers so he's forced to forge ahead unprotected. I didn't want Billy to have to spend the whole story in a cumbersome suit, and I like that it maybe wasn't necessary in the first place. Was Billy just wearing a play costume that gets wet with water from the sprinkler so he ditches it? Or was he completely imagining the suit? Or did his adventure start out more sci-fi, but he's not constrained by genre? Either way, he's free to play as he see's fit and the melting suit gives a sense of peril to his journey.

Nature Can Be a Scary Place

Billy encounters lady bugs in the forest (a shrub along the property line). I wanted the lady bugs to be ambiguously dangerous. Perhaps they're peaceful, but their sheer numbers make them a little threatening.

Once as a kindergartener in the woods on an army base in New Jersey, I found myself all alone. As I was walking I looked down and realized I had stepped in some sort of rotting stump. It was overgrown with big flat mushrooms that I had disturbed, sending bugs scattering. It was so unexpected and I remember feeling panicked and temporarily paralyzed standing there. Of course, it was all completely harmless, but the experience really stuck with me.

I imagine Billy in a similar situation. Perhaps he crouches in the bush to watch one ladybug and then realizes there's another one, and another one, and a dozen more, and he begins to feel overwhelmed, even though they're harmless.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Billy is led to his neighbor's fence, which he see's as a colossal fortified wall. And of course, no kid uses a gate when presented with a good climbing opportunity, even a vertigo inducing one.

A cave under every table

Captain Billy's quest for a cup of sugar interrupts his current mission, exploring a vast cave (under the kitchen table). I'm hoping to ground all the settings in a realistic environment that's been so modified by Billy's imagination that it's barely recognizable. For the cave, you can just make out table legs and chairs beneath the stalactites and stalagmites. I'll play with scale throughout, but Billy won't always be full size or "Honey, I shrunk the kids" tiny.

How Great is Ladybug Girl?

While working on Bean, I was wistfully reading David Soman and Jacky Davis' Ladybug Girl to my kids. I was working on Bean before we discovered Ladybug Girl so I was almost discouraged to see someone had already covered similar ground—and so much more successfully.

David Soman's Ladybug Girl

With Bean, I was investing so much energy in a subtle sci-fi setting and a princess/construction crossover. But at the end of the day, I was trying to show an empowered little girl who beat boredom. David and Jacky had already done that in such a clean, beautiful way.

I'm still excited by the potential stories in the Bean universe, but Ladybug Girl inspired me to try something with a simpler concept. I was letting myself get bogged down in world-building. I had made so many rules.

With Captain Billy, I'm still working in a sci-fi universe, but it's as imagined by Billy—so there are no rules! And instead of trying to introduce a character and world, I'm now focused on telling a simple story. Regardless of how Billy imagines it, he's still just a boy sent next door for a cup of sugar. The end.

I'm also going to keep my aesthetic approach looser this time around. While Bean relied heavily on clean line and graphic shapes, Captain Billy is going to be more about color and tone. I'll start with pencil again, but will move to watercolor before putting down any ink. And I'll resist the urge to draw and redraw every line over and over until it's overworked and sterile.

Maybe I'll have a few drinks before I begin.

Additional Captain Billy Sketches

For Bean I was focused on getting a proper spread count, but this time around I'm thinking I get in and out quick, knowing how I'd develop more if I ever needed or wanted to. So these five images basically complete the story:

Billy encounters the mysterious basset sphinx.

No one crosses this land without permission from Robin Ben Quick. 

Captain Billy is taken to the secret tree camp of Robin Ben Smith.

The Lady Smith appears to remind Captain Billy of his true purpose.

Billy returns home.

Borrowing a Cup of Sci-fi Sugar Sketches

Some rough sketches for part of the story and locations:

Captain Billy's exploring a vast underground cavern (under a table) when he receives a mission.

Captain Billy surveys the vast plains he must cross (the front yard).

Before Billy can make it out, large acid spewing towers (water sprinklers) begin to spray.

His suit destroyed by acid, Billy braves the dark forest (a border hedge) unprotected.

Billy encounters a platoon of lady bugs in the forest.

A lady bug guides Captain Billy to a massive, nearly impenetrable wall (a picket fence).

Billy scales the wall.

Cool Haircuts for Boys

Turns out it's as hard to come up with a good haircut for a fictional boy as is it for my own son. I started doing a few quick character studies but I think I'm going to work from the outside in on this story and start with sketching spreads.

Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor

I've got an idea for a story where a boy is sent by his mom to the neighbors to borrow a cup of sugar. Of course, his experience of that simple task only grows more epic in his imagination. I'm imagining a picket fence as an impenatrable high-fantasy wall, an encounter with a neighborhood puppy as a Herculean task, and a lawn sprinkler as an acid-spewing villain—all to be overcome by our boy/intergalactic hero.

A Tribe of Tree People

I was looking to make use of some miniature solar powered tree houses I had made as decorations a few years back, and thought it'd be nice populate them. You can see the final image here, but here's some background:

The original idea was to make some little birdhouses that weren't really for birds:

I painted the ceramic pieces and made stick and rope ladders so that wee little people might use them:

Then they were hung outside with individual solar lights so they'd shine at night:

Recently, I thought I'd illustrate a little tribe of people to live in the houses and the surrounding tree. Originally, they were going to be newspaper scavengers, but it was too clumsy visually, so I ended up leaving them clean. These two brave soldiers were left out of the final image set because the outfits were goofy and their weapons made no sense once you removed the newspaper texture.