White lines...Freeze! Rock!

More texture and some stripes!

Now with a kid!

Color choices...

A few color variations of the same drawing.  Like many others, I feel that the hardest part about working 100% digitally is that the options are limitless.

More monsters...

Like I said, I'm going to try everything I can come up with.

Trying everything...

I'm working on a new book that has a monster in it.  I would really like to try to find a style that is different, bolder, and more exciting than what I currently do.  Here's a few different approaches.  I'm not sure if any of them work, but I'm trying...

Textures and colors...

I spent some time today looking at Jon Klasson's work trying to figure out what he does with layers, colors and textures.  I had this simple sketch in one of my books, and added some color to it using some notions inspired by Klasson.  I don't want to learn, or copy, his style, but I want to push my coloring, and I thought his work might lead me in some new directions.  Just a note, I did not have any of his work in front of me while doing this, I just went by what I remembered.

And here's the unedited sketch from my book. 

Another New Idea...

The other project I've been working on the last few months or so is a large, stand-alone graphic novel about a bunch of kids who drop out of society and set up camp at the town dump.  Honest.  I'm actually pretty excited about it, as it is the sort of "could happen in the real world" type story that I really enjoy.  There's no magic or fantasy elements.  It's as realistic fictiony as I get.

Here are a few pages from my sketchbook.  The color was added digitally at a later date.  I could decipher the text in the sketches, but I think I'll leave it up to you.  Most of the writing in my notebooks and sketchbooks is as sloppy and messy as this. I think, in a way, I need to really commit to an idea before I write more carefully.  At this stage, the dialog itself is a sketch.

More Sci-Fi stuff...

I spent most of the summer working on a big, odd, sci-fi story that, while I'm excited by it, I'm also unsure about it. After slowly developing it for a few months, it occurred to me that it might not really be for kids.  It's not that it's too heady or violent, but I'm just not sure what it says to kids about the lives they live.  While it is a story that is meaningful to me, I simply don't know if a young audience would relate to it.  And truthfully, I'm not really interested in aiming at at adults.  This is a hard one.  I'm not sure if I'm going to go forward with it.

These were two sketches I put together.  In the top one I'm really trying to figure out how simple I could go with colors and solid blacks.

This one is a colored sketchbook page.  Some of the stuff, such as the lederhosen dude, just kinda snuck onto the page.

FANGBONE! is Here!

Finally!  Fangbone! premiered today on Disney XD across the US.  It will be on every day at 12:30 and 4:30 for the next few weeks.  Please take some time and check it out.  I'm very proud of it, and I'm thrilled to be able to share it with everyone.

Fangbone! Making of Video #1

With Any Luck I'll Drive a Truck

My latest book, "With Any Luck, I'll Drive a Truck" is finally out, and it's getting great reviews.  It was written by David Friend and published by Nancy Paulsen Books.  It's the first book that I've illustrated for another author since 2011.

Here are four of my favorite drawings from the book. Eventually, I will post some pictures of the process behind them. I'm posting them without the text, so if you want to know what each page says, you'll have to read the book!

Here are some of the reviews, Kirkus,  Publisher's Weekly,  and the New York Times.

I hope you take the time to find a copy of this book for all the little drivers in your life!


     

Animation concept update...

Here are the previous two images updated with the second main character dropped in.  I've included a close-up of the two of them together as well.

Animation concept 2

Here's another.  This one isn't as successful.  I need to work on adding some depth to it.  I like the planets, though.

Animation concept...

Sometime over the next few months I'm going to pitch an original idea for an animated TV show.  I have many ideas about what the show will be about, but over the next few posts I want to nail down how it could look.  Yes, it takes place on a another planet.

King sized...

Here's a drawing that I put together for a picture book idea I'm working on.  I wanted to see what I could do with a limited palette, and flat colors.  I like the way this turned out.

Aliens driving little cars...

Yeah.  More of this nonsense.

Here's the same drawing with a colored line.

Robots...

...and some more aliens.  A continuation of the previous post.

Aliens...

This is a page from my sketchbook that I colored digitally.  It's from another large idea I'm working on. I'm starting to like some of these guys.

Cowboy Sketch

While I spend most of my time these days working on Fangbone!, I am also still trying out new illustration ideas, and trying to get comfortable working 100% digitally.  This is based on a photo of Billy the Kidd.

Astronaut #20 and #21

Two more space goers for my ongoing Astronaut series.  This first one is a follow up to the book idea from a few posts ago.

This second one is something that I'm working on for a new animation project.  Both pieces are 100% digital.

Fangbone! VR Goggles

In one of the forthcoming episodes of the Fangbone TV show, Fangbone and Bill use these odd Skullbanian Virtual Reality goggles.  This is one of the first things that I drew using the Wacom Cintiq.  At the moment it looks like the show will be hitting Canada in March, and on Disney XD in the US sometime in the fall.