Pirates!!

Finally! I have the internet again. I apologize for my absence, I really missed everyone Else's blogs. I felt cut off from my community. I also got a ton of work done, so it wasn't all bad. Here are some scans from my advance of my new book. I'm very proud of this one, I really put a lot of love and time into it. I can see some major flaws but not as bad as my other books. I think I'm learning. I'll complain about myself in an upcoming post. If anyone wants me to sign a book for them and send it to them let me know, I'd love to do it. It's only eleven bucks Canadian. I think one of the things that made this book really work is the design. The fonts they chose are perfect, they echo both my pictures and the text. The designers are Co&Co. It's two girls called Kate and I went to college with both of them. Boy, they're good.

Dust Has Settled

Well, things are a little less crazy. A new routine is even starting to establish itself. I've been working long hours on a couple of projects but my new studio is huge and it feels very luxurious. I'm so excited to get there in the morning I keep forgetting about breakfast. I still don't have internet, though. Soon I hope. I'm borrowing my Uncles computer tonight. I have advance copies of my new book! The launch is coming up so if anyone wants an invite please let me know. I don't want to leave anyone out. I'm really happy with how this book turned out. I'll post pictures soon.
The pictures above are from my sketch book. During the move I read a lot of superhero comics and watched a lot of cartoons and I think it shows.

Apple The Wandering Illustrator

Apple is what some of the kids I teach call me, Orchard = Apple....
Anyway, I'm feeling rather cut adrift at the moment. We're between places.
The new place has no internet and when I tried to get it hooked up I was told there are too many trees to get a cable from the wires overhead to the house... I got another company to hook me up
without having to worry about the trees but they won't be there until next Friday. So I'm at a library right now and will probably have to do things like this for a few days. I'll try to post when I can. I hope everyone is well.

Labyrinth Of Boxes

The move is going fine, thanks for all your well wishes people! I really appreciate it. I'm still working hard on a couple of projects amidst a sea of boxes, mostly containing my books...

I'm loving drawing in pencil these days! I started sketching for the Robot Museum and now I can't get enough. Sadly I can't post anything new because the two things I'm working on are both top secret. Argh!I hate keeping secrets!So, I'm posting an old piece but one of my favorites, the Rat Pirates.

Moving!

Things are wild busy right now! We're in the midst of a move and I have so much drawing and writing to do! Ah well, it's kind of fun to be working through a chaotic time too. I'm just posting an old painting today. I'm reading Jellaby by Kean Soo, has anyone read this? It's really good, I think kids would love it. It's a graphic novel about a girl and her purple monster. I found out about Kean because he's been in the Flight anthologies. A nice thing happened yesterday, for the first time an editor at a publishing house seemed to like my writing! That was nice. We'll be moving between now and Sunday, I'll try to post, visit your blogs leave comments etc. during that time.

Jack And The Beanstalk Painting

Here's my newest painting. It's not for a particular project but just for my portfolio. It's a bit big for my scanner so it's missing a bit of the image. Things are pretty crazy right now, that's why I'm not posting as often as I usually do. I have a very exciting secret project I'm working on and I'm doing lots of work for Robot Museum. I'm doing mostly writing right now for the Museum, which I find much harder than drawing or painting. I think I have lots of ideas which I find interesting, it's putting them in logical order that's the challenge. My wife and I are also moving right now, so I'm sitting around with my drawings surrounded by boxes. I can work fine under these circumstances but things are a bit hectic. The dog and cat know somethings up too, they keep shooting me suspicious glances. My first book has been nominated for Lillian Sheppard award, that's a regional publishing award. There were some great books published so I'm not overly optimistic about my chances. Started reading A Wrinkle In Time again. I haven't read it since I was twelve. It's a great book. Also, I don't know if antone remembers a post i did a couple of months ago about artist Wallace Edwards. He has just won the Governor General's Award for illustration. That's the highest honour our country bestows on artists. Congratulations Wally!

Flobot

The Flobot holds the keys to other robots and computer systems. This stationary robot takes commands and passes them on to other systems, a sort of hub for artificial intelligence. Flobots are about the size of a car. They talk slowly and consider every word. They enjoy games with numbers.

Potbot

This guy is like a personal satellite. It floats in your orbit, taking notes and running errands. It's quite small, about the size of a pumpkin.

Mimbelbot

This is a fairly definitive drawing of the Mimbelbot model, although all the robot models have many variations. I imagine that when it walks slowly it wobbles but when it runs it's steady and fast. I'm going through all the robots and doing definitive versions. The robots in the museum all come from a golden age of robotics. The golden age follows the first wave of deep space exploration and ends at the outbreak of war on the deep space colonies, which is a period of about one hundred and fifty years. I'm considering putting together a booklet of sketches called The Golden Age Of Robotics and selling it online.

Art Day

On Friday I went to a special art day at Sacred Heart School and got to share with the grade sixes what I do. I had so much fun! They were so inspiring! There were a lot of budding artists and art fans too, a concept designer, two fashion designers, a comic book fan and more. I couldn't believe how great all the kids were. I decided to do a workshop on creating characters. They could either make up their own characters or draw one of their favorite characters from a movie, comic or book. I brought different examples of character design including my own work, James Gurney's Dinotopia, the Art Of Robots-from the movie and the Art Of Spirited Away. I was really suprised how many people know Hayao Miyazaki!

It was a really great time. Thanks to all the kids in grade six, the parents helping out, the other artists and Arlene.

Quentin Fixing Robot

Here's Quentin and Nora again. Quentin is working on the robot, he has telekinetic abilities so he can take apart the rivets and wires. I like the colour scheme here, I was suprised when I painted this. I thought the museum would have very different colours, much cooler. I was pleased with this one because it it let me understand this world a bit better. I have the outline of a script done that I'm pretty happy with. I was having problems because I haven't done comics in a while, mostly picture books which have extremely simple narratives which wouldn't work in an extended, all ages story. It helped to read a lot of Science Fiction. I'm finishing up a portfolio piece right now and doing pencil drawings exploring the world of the Robot Museum. I have school and library visits coming up which I have to admit I find terribly stressful. I always have fun but I find these events hard to plan. How do you guys plan these things? Do you plan them at all?

By the way, which Uncle Gilbert do you all like better?

Uncle Gil-Early Version

Linda at Sketched Out(http://sketchedout.wordpress.com/)wanted to know what an earlier version of Uncle Gil looked like. This is another idea for the character, not terribly different, but much larger. I imagined him at one point to be an ex-boxer who had let himself go. I liked the visual impact of a mountainous man moving in a cloud of pipe smoke.

Everyone please check out Alicia Padron's blog! She did an awfully nice post about my first book. Her site is at( http://www.lovetoillustrate.blogspot.com/)

Thank you so much, Alicia.

Uncle Gilbert

Nora's mysterious Uncle, Gilbert. A proffessor of robot history, he took in Nora when her parents died in deep space. Gilbert has spent most of his life searching the galaxy for lost and forgotten robots to add to his collection.
I'm still not sure about this character design. I keep going back and forth between a number of designs. The mustache is usually there though.

Also! Please note i added a new book to my list of books illustrated to the right!

I'll post about it soon.

15 Step

Check out this amazing video for the Radiohead video contest for the song 15 step. It's by RobinJoseph, Matt Whelan and Cal Brunker.

http://www.aniboom.com/Player.aspx?v=197787

Quentin And Mimbelbot

I've been working on the story for Robot Museum and exploring the world that the characters live in and it's full of surprises. I just realized the museum is on a floating island that trolls up and down the Atlantic coast. I also realized how old the robots in the museum are, the newest model is fifty years old and the oldest goes back a couple of hundred years. I also realized the museum is failing, it's not as popular as it once was and attendance is down.
I have to say, I'm really enjoying working in this "style" , the earthy tones and the subtler shades of watercolour. I think this subtle, descriptive manner really suits a fantastical world.

International Children's Book Day

I found myself in an awkward situation last night but the type of situation that I'm getting used to and maybe enjoy a little bit. I went to the Children's Book Round Table New Books Bash last night celebrating IBBY's Internation Children's Book Day. As soon as I got there and sat down I was called up to the podium to give a speach. I didn't know I was giving a speach. It turned out fine, I somehow ended up talking about Venezuela...People told me it was good though. Thank you so much Heather for the fine introduction! And thanks to everyone at the Wrtiter's Federation as well as to Lisa, thanks Lisa! Food was good too! I'm amazed at all the talented people who live here. Really eye opening.
As for the Robot Museum, I'm talking to people about it and I probably shouldn't go on about it here. I will say I'm having misgivings. I don't want to lose this story.

Mimbelbot Sketches

Here are some robot sketches in pen. I'm working like mad to get some writing done for Monday. Tonight I'm attending a dinner the Writer's Federation is throwing, so I should wear something nice.

Nora Reading

I've changed Nora's look a bit since this piece, but not much. Mostly I've rethought the way she dresses. I've been reading a lot of short science fiction stories. Most SF is pretty depressing. I've stumbled on some authors I really responded too though like Ian Macleod and Alastair Reynolds.

Nora ( In Colour )

Nora is the orphaned daughter of two deep space explorers, who died while explorer a dark area of unmapped space. She was sent to live with her only living relative, an uncle who is the curator of a Robot Museum. Bored, angry and lonely Nora makes friends with the Museums new mechanic, Quentin.