Comments from earlier today from Jed:
Sorry for asking so many questions, but just a little context: Is this image a self-contained page of art, or part of a page with a sequence of drawings, sort of like comics? I ask because you've drawn a little frame around both images.
No problem. I appreciate your interest. In the "frames" art you mention, Fred is looking further and further inside a sugar Easter egg with a little peep hole in one end. In the 2 two-page-spreads you've seen, he looks through the window of a space capsule, then he sees what the astrobunny sees on his computer screen. So, no, those are not really frames in the comics sense, they are a spaceship window frame and a computer screen frame. Each spread is a major portion of a two-page spread from the book, but not the entire spread. The two color spreads currently at everything are from the Easter Book. The black-and-white spread is from a different book.
How do you intend to present this? Are the finishes going to be painted, and are you including a painted finish among the roughs, or are you going to computer color the whole business?
I intend to bring 4 books completely up to the level of the material being seen at Everything, and photocopy and hand-assemble dummies of each book. That is what I am presenting at this stage. There will be some color and some black-and-white in the proposals. As for finished art, I am not currently planning to include any in the proposals. The painting of the dog version of Fred that I posted a few weeks (months?) ago is HISTORY and GARBAGE. It's back to the original Fred and full speed ahead. Everybody that I asked in my unscientific surveys overwhelmingly prefers the old Fred, and hates the puppy. Alas I have once again given up on painting, and if I had to start on finished art right now I'd draw everything with black prismacolor and scan and color on the computer, one step beyond the Easter roughs.
Who are you presenting it to? Is this going to be an unsolicited submission?
It is totally unsolicited. I am currently sending letters of enquiry and samples to a bunch of publishers and trying to generate interest and interviews. If that doesn't work, I will take the dummies to some international book fairs. I am mentally prepared to spend years on this if I have to.
Getting into the Children's book biz is so intensely competitive now, I'm just curious how you're going about it. Me and everybody else--including every friend or relative who ever asked you to "illustrate their children's book" would love to get in on the act, but it seems like a total up hill battle, and having a background in comics, from what I hear, is no help at all.
You hear correctly, from what I have experienced.
•••
How's everybody's turkey tale coming along???
2 comments:
Have you considered something inbetween painting and flat color--like the Montgomery Wart story in the first issue of Tantalyzing Tales? I really like the way that was colored, and it gave a lot more life to your drawings than computer color tends to.
I like the limited color of some of those old Dr. Seuss books, just two or three flat colors--I think computer color would be effective in small doses, but fully rendered computer art may or may not be the way to go.
With color in these two pieces you're making a lot of local color choices, and if nothing else it would be nice to see some continuity in the color--a little more sense of color by design rather than color by default.
And I wouldn't throw the Fred painting out with the bathwater--I think that painting was pretty sucessful on its own. that would look good on anybody's wall. Though you may be giving up painting for a time, I hope we can look forward to future efforts. Maybe, once these proposals take hold you'd consider a fully painted book as your next project?
Good Luck with all, man!
'course let's hope the overseas royalties-deal doesn't become a bloody-mess!
Post a Comment