Monster Island Initial Layout

I have now begun the pencil layout for the Monster Island map page. It will be a double-page spread. I thought I would first show the page layout in its early stages, before I begin adding details and refinements. So now I know the shape of the island, but I only have a general  idea of what will follow. This is because I seldom do thumbnails. I just start drawing and wait to find out where the drawing leads me, following a rough mental picture in my mind. In art school we were taught to do thumbnails...I never got into that very much.

Next I will work on the title banner and start laying in the route that the expedition takes. I'm concerned about space. Is there enough space to include the locations of all the beasties on the map? I'll know soon when I start laying out the expedition route.

As soon as the book is completed, it will be available for sale, also as an Ebook. If you choose to buy a copy, let me know if you would like me to autograph it. I'll be glad to accomodate.

Have you seen my other blog? Check it out. It's called The Trowbridge Chronicles.

Bird's-Eye View of Monster Island

This is the final art for the Monster Island bird's-eye spread. It will be the opening spread in my Monster Safari kids' book. I inked the pencil layout (below) then colored it in Photoshop with my Wacom Cintiq. Most of the graphite under-drawing is still there, mostly covered with color. I did remove the graphite in the light areas, like the beach.

At present the text remains my hand-lettering. But I will probably substitute the hand-lettering with typeset text. 

The next thing that you'll see on this blog will be the pencil layout for the next spread, which will be a straight-down view of the island. It will look more like a treasure map, in that it will show where we located the monsters, the location of the peaks, swamps, etc. There will be a dotted line which will trace the route of our expedition to the island. 

Check out my other blog: Trowbridge Chronicles.

Monster Island - Bird's Eye View, inked

Here's the next step in completing the final art of the Monster Island bird's-eye view spread for my new kids' book, Monster Safari. I inked the line of the halftone drawing (see below) using a Micron Pigma number 005 pen. I used a number 2 for the hand-lettering. I left the half-tone in so that it would serve as a guide when I'm painting in the color values and shadows.

The next and final step, the color, will be done in Photoshop, using my Wacom Cintiq. I will be posting the final color art soon.

Check out my other blog, the Trowbridge Chronicles.

Merry Christmas to All!

Here's the pencil layout and final art for this year's Christmas card. Best wishes for a Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year.

Monster Island - Birds-eye View

This will be the first spread in my Monster Safari kids' book. This illustration will introduce readers to Monster Island from an aerial point of view. This is a graphite value study of the upcoming full-color spread. The next page in the book may contain a straight-down view, an illustrated map of the island, which will pinpoint exactly where our team encountered the various monsters on the island. Click on the image to enlarge it.

I hand-lettered the above text, but I might decide to typeset it. All of the monster pages (scroll down) are hand-lettered, but I might find that it would be more appropriate to typeset the introductory pages.

The next view that you will see of the above illustration will be the final full-color version. 

Have you seen my other blog, The Trowbridge Chronicles? It's a world away from Monster Island.

Two-Headed Zilch - How-to-Draw Page

               

The last beastie in our bestiary sketch book is perhaps the strangest, and certainly the rarest. We only saw one specimen of the Two-Headed Zilch during our time on the island. It was probably an anomaly, a one-of-a-kind creature. 

Watching the Zilch walk through the jungle was a hysterically funny sight. We had to stifle our guffaws so as not to scare him away. When one side of the Zilch is walking forward, the other side is backing up. What was most hilarious was watching them squabbled over who would walk forward. Whoever lost the argument was saddled with the inferior task of backing up as they lumbered through the jungle in search of food. I was sketching furiously while I laughed silently. 

They would begin with a back-and-forth struggle...forward, backward, forward, backward, and so on...until one would win the tug-of-war. He was then the leader, for the moment, until they would stop to nibble on a jungle morsel, then it would start all over again. 

You can see that there's a small space on each side of the creature where a talk balloon could be placed. But I'm in a bit of a quandary about what the creature will be saying. I'm open for suggestions for a very short bit of dialogue that would go in the talk balloon...one bit of dialogue from each side of the creature. If I'm able to use your suggested dialogue, I'll send you a signed copy of the book when it comes out.  

Now that all of the creatures are drawn, I will begin the final phase of the book, creating the full-color set-up illustrations and text, using the many reference sketches and photos that I took while I was on the island. The next image you see may be a bird's-eye view painting of the island and surrounding tropical sea. I have only a handful of pages to go before the book is complete. If you want to see all of the monsters in the book, simply scroll down.

In the foreground you can see the hint of a game trail which leads to a thick, dark and mysterious region of jungle, with a sharp peak in the distance. We called this peak the "Needle" for its sharp point (which we scaled later that day). It was in this dark jungle undergrowth on Monster Island that we spotted the Zilch.

Have you seen my other blog, The Trowbridge Chronicles? Check it out.

Snoot - How-to-Draw Page

The monster menagerie march continues, with the curious looking Snoot. Hey, don't blame me for the silly name, folks. My assistant named him the very moment we first spotted him slogging through the swamp on Monster Island. He was standing on a half-submerged log below a hanging branch with a segmented serpent draped over it, just as you see here. I grabbed my sketchbook and sketched him on the spot.

Each spread in the upcoming Monster Safari book will feature a full-page sketch of the monster (just as you see here) on the left side of the spread. The how-to-draw page will be on the opposite page. Though we discovered many more monsters during the course of our safari on the island than you will see in the book, I selected my favorite dirty dozen beasties for the book.

Here's a shot of me in the jungle on the island, taken by my assistant. This photo was taken just moments before we spotted the Snoot. You can see that the jungle is very dense and spooky, with lots of tangled vines and roots, and animal trails that lead to nowhere. I felt like I had just climbed into a Tarzan movie.

Have you seen my other blog, The Trowbridge Chronicles? Check it out.