Morels Is Out (The Strategy Card Game I Illustrated)

I get a surprising amount of queries from people who, without benefit of a standard publisher or a huge budget, would like to put out their own children's book or toy or game, and they'd like me to lend my talents to the project. Often times, for one reason or another, these projects fall through or meet with insurmountable resistance and they don't get a wide distribution. Which is a shame because many of these projects are really worthwhile.

Well, I'm happy to say that, in this recent case, all the stars aligned properly and a really fun project with a great client managed to get from start to finish and is now out on the shelves. Morels, a strategy card came based on the idea of foraging for mushrooms in the woods is now available to purchase. I worked on the company logo, the game logo, the card art and box art.  So far, in the first week of sales, the orders are coming in from all over the globe and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive. 

The game's designer is Brent Povis, an educator, life-long game nut, and chief honcho at Two Lanterns Games. One of my favorite clients so far, Brent is the kind of hands-on idea-guy who, if he's not sure how to do something (like use photo-editing software, or build a website, or start a game company) he'll just buckle down and teach himself how to do it. Working on a shoestring budget -- and I should know because I was one of those shoestrings -- Brent is promoting and distributing the game himself. You can learn a little bit about it at the Two Lanterns Games Official Website that Brent put together during his promotional tour. You can also purchase Morels at the Two Lanterns site and take a look at some of the process behind the artwork.

Speaking of the promotional tour, Brent will be at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio for the next few days. Look him up at the Two Lanterns Games table and tell him I said hi.

If you live in or near Pittsburgh, you can find the game locally at Games Unlimited in Squirrel Hill. But call before you go because the first month's stock sold out in two days! Seriously. 

You can also find out what other people think of the game on the premiere games review site, BoardGameGeek where it's got a fairly respectable user rating so far and where you'll see encouraging reviews like this:

Gave this 2-player a whirl on the advice of my [Friendly Local Game Shop]. It was really great! It's a set collection game with a few twists. Beautiful components, easy rules, plays quickly, so I got in several plays, which revealed a nice level of depth for the play time. Should you have an interest, it was made by a local Pittsburgh designer (no one I know), and I stumbled over it at my FLGS.

I'll be posting more box art and card art in the future, as well as some of the work-in-progress steps. In the meantime, go check out this game. I've played it and it's fun. And not just because I get to stare at my artwork while I play. It's actually a fun strategy game and I'm really glad I had a chance to work on it. -v

The Haunted Forest: Flying Monkeys Still Scare Me

Second only to the gorilla soldiers in Planet Of The Apes, the Flying Monkeys from The Wizard of Oz are some of the most terrifying primates from my childhood. So when I decided to do a Haunted Forest illustration to accompany my Yellow Brick Road piece, I wanted to make sure the flying monkeys were scary enough. Hope I hit the mark. I laid out the process below if you'd like to follow along.  

Chaos in the Haunted Forest. This was the initial rough sketch I did while working out the composition.  I knew I wanted a lot of yelling and a lot of monkeys. In the end, four monkeys seemed sufficient to best our traveling band of heroes, so I stopped there. If I do another Oz piece, maybe I'll draw a whole army of monkeys. If my nerves can take it. 

Here's a more polished sketch, based on the rough. I wanted to indicate some depth of field so I scattered the heroes back through space, leaving Dorothy up front as the focal point. I also figured, at this point in the Haunted Forest, the foliage would be getting a little more unpleasant. We've not yet reached the place where angry-faced trees will actually reach out  grab you, but the sharp brambles seemed appropriate.

So I scanned in my sketch and began layering in some grey tones. I wanted the setting to be mysterious and foreboding, so I started with the darkest recesses of the woods, making them shadowy and full of potential danger. I worked a little larger than I needed -- intending to crop the image when I was done -- so you can see a lot of leftover "junk" at the edges of the image. Feel free to ignore that stuff. 

Working from back to front, the next step after the deep shadow was the trees along the path. I was tempted to make them even more twisted and gnarled, but I didn't want to take too much attention away from the wacky characters. The composition is busy enough as is without a bunch of crazy, twisted tree limbs confusing matters. So I left the trees at this particular stage of creepiness.

Ah, the yellow-bricked road. Don't let anyone ever tell you that drawing a hundred or so individual bricks that wind and curve back into the distance isn't fun -- because it isn't. But it does give you a nice feeling when you're done. And since I had my pencil sketch to use as a guide, I didn't have to draw every single brick. That's why there's a Dorothy-shaped hole in the road up front there.

Here I've gone over my pencil line in Photoshop to neaten up the figures, and I've started to put down tone (again, working back to front). I'd like to say there's a method to this part, but I really just kept experimenting with different brushes, some soft-edged, some hard, with varying degrees of opacity. The trick, I think, is to take your time and build up your forms in layers, just like with traditional painting. But seriously, what do I know? I still think flying monkeys are real.

At this stage, I'm almost finished. I filled in the details on all the characters, brushed in highlights, shadows and texture, and continued to add more mood to the background. This is a good stage to "fix" things that need tweaking. For instance, I notice that Dorothy's gingham dress gets a little lost in the brick background. I'll have to increase the contrast so she stands out better. I also note an empty area behind the front monkey's wings. I could've painted a whole new tree and some brambles, but for such a small area I figured I could just copy/paste some foliage from the other side of the image. After I fixed these things, I decided a little sepia-toning would add some warmth. The finished piece is at the top of the post. And yeah, it is a little warmer. The monkeys are still scary, but now they offer a little warmth with their terror. -v

The Field Day T-Shirt, 2012

I was commissioned by a local school to design their Field Day t-shirts. What's Field Day? It's a day-long, school-wide event where teachers, staff and students get together and go crazy with a bunch of games and contests. The photo above shows the final design on paper and on an actual shirt. I had a lot of fun designing this shirt, but we went through a few different versions before landing on this one. I'll go through the process below.

Ok, the first thing I had to do was get the design approved. I roughed out a concept based on one of the games the kids play during Field Day: Mummifying teachers in bathroom tissue. I went a little retro with the design, gave it that inky, comics outline with hatching and fun, bubbly text. I also created a caricature of the school's director and cast him as the "maypole" in the design. So, roughs, then pencils, then inks done in Photoshop. Approved. Time to move on to color...

Originally, I was given no limit on colors, so I went nuts and used twelve. Twelve!! Then the school got the printing estimate and we all stopped kidding ourselves and decided (reluctantly, but wisely) to reduce the number of colors. What you see above are some different passes on the design with different color themes. That first one was something friend/illustrator Pat Lewis threw my way. He's a huge fan of retro design so I figured he'd nail it. The warm colors Pat used hit just the right 70s note and fit the design perfectly. But the printer considered both the solid red and the red dots (skin tone) two different colors. That made it a five color design. So I tried both a four-color and seven-color design before settling on the eight-color design you see at the top of the post.

   

Here's a shot of some of the kids and faculty modeling the shirt on Field Day. You should be able to spot the school's director (and star of the t-shirt) at the back-right wearing the tie-dyed version of the shirt. I'm told he loved his caricature on the shirt. Note that I ran this photo through the Googly Cartoon Eye filter to protect everyone's identity.

And here is the entire Field Day crew wearing a rainbow of shirts (different teams, different colors) on the field, ready to begin the games. I'm told the shirts were a hit with both the faculty and kids and that Field Day itself was a blast. I had a great time working on the design too, so I guess everybody wins. -v

How To Stuff 2,000 CDs Into An 8-Inch Box

I listen to a lot of music when I'm drawing. Pro Secret: I've drawn many a fuzzy bunny while blasting Iron Maiden through my speakers. But the cd collection is getting out of hand and studio space is at a premium. So it's time to modernize.

I picked up an external drive with plenty of space (3 tb) and, over the last couple weeks, I've been archiving all my tunes on the hard drive. First benefit: the songs are right there at my fintertips. I never have to search through my cds again. If I'm in the mood for AC/DC, I just click the song and keep drawing. Ramones? click. Prince? click. Nancy Wilson? click. Hank Williams? click. Mike Viola? clickety-click-click-click. You get the picture. 

Second benefit: I keep my drink on my desk while I work and now I can use the discs as coasters. 

Third benefit: I can take the music with me whenever I go on one of those nice, long vacations we freelancers are always taking. 

Big thanks to friend/illustrator Mark Brewer for giving me the idea to digitize. Tangential shout-out to friend/illustrator John Blumen who claims he doesn't  listen to music while he works (what?!). Quick note to music lovers: copies of my hard drive go on sale next month to help fund my various computer purchases. -v

A Tale Of Two Scarecrows

Maybe you've seen this Yellow Brick Road piece on my website. I was working on a post about my process on that illustration, and I happened to run across an early scarecrow sketch that I didn't use. I figured I'd post it and talk about why I didn't use it. Yeah. That oughta use up some space.

So here's the first scarecrow I sketched out. He's cute, right? I was thinking, maybe too cute. Looks like my design was influenced an awful lot by Ray Bolger's character in the MGM movie, which I enjoyed. But the thing about Baum's story is it's not just fun and fantastical. It's a little creepy. So I thought this loveable scarecrow might not be right for the job.

This guy is just right, though. He's cute but he's creepy too. I wouldn't want to run into him in a dark cornfield at night, but there's a sweetness to his smile that I really like. So this is the design I stuck with for the finished piece. 

And here's a quick step-by-step on the scarecrow. After the rough sketch, I cleaned it up in Photoshop and then painted in the color. I'll work on a step-by-step for the whole piece and try to get that up soon. -v

Happy Mother's Day (a few days early)

So, Mother's Day has rolled around once again. That's my cue to buckle down and draw something cute for my mom. This year she gets this cherubic kitten handing his mom some irises and daisies. When you don't know what to say, say it with flowers. And when you're too cheap to say it with flowers, say it with a drawing of someone saying it with flowers.

About the drawing: It's cute, but this is the kind of illustration that art directors look at and think, "meh." Trust me on this. However, it's also the kind of drawing that my mom cherishes and keeps in her purse for a week so she can casually show everyone she meets in the course of her day. 

"So...did you see this beautiful card my son drew for me?"

"Lady, just drop the fare in the box and siddown...I got other stops to make."

Anyway, that's the important thing...that my mom likes the card. Especially since, as coincidence would have it, my birthday follows sometime shortly after Mother's Day every year. And you should never underestimate the augmentative effect a sweet, handmade Mother's Day card can have on a subsequent birthday gift. 

Here's the original sketch I did when I came up with the idea. The cats at the far left are a little rough but I was just trying to get the general idea down on paper. And you can see the original kitten had his hand behind his back, but it looked confusing so I changed it. Then I refined the sketch with a polished drawing, scanned it into Photoshop and started laying down color.

These final steps are pretty basic. Just slopping down color until I get it looking the way I want it. I toyed with the idea of having some text at the top of the image but in the end I decided the plain image said it best. And if you forgot to buy a card for Mother's Day, feel free to stop back here Sunday with your mom, show her this post and say, "he drew what was in my heart, ma!" She'll be truly touched. Although, I cannot promise you that'll earn you an awesome birthday present in return. -v

Avengers, Assemble! Hulk...Smoosh?

In anticipation of the release of the Avengers movie this weekend, RunRedRun has taken my cartoony Hulk designs and turned them into a very angry, very fuzzy Incredible Hulk fiber art doll. He's big, too. Probably the largest felted wool doll RunRedRun has put together. He stands 11 inches tall but -- get this -- his arms move! In an arcing, "Hulk Smash" sort of way, his arms are hinged so he can properly show his rage. And with his arms raised above his head he's about 14 inches tall.

Below you can see some very rough design sketches and a collection of potential faces to choose from. My friend at RunRedRun chose the classic Hulk grimace and turned those rough sketches into the fuzzy behemoth you see in these early photos.

To ramp up for the Avengers movie, check out RunRedRun for more photos. And until the movie comes out, you can amuse yourself with my uber-geeky, goofball, action figure recreation below. -v