Rushing Ruby

A couple of initial roughs -
doing them in colour straight away in an attempt to save time.
I desperately need to get onto my dingo book but this Little mates book is in the way.

On the positive- it should end up being nice and colourful or even atmospheric in bits?.
But it will have an oarfish and a sunfish- neither of which start with R but are cool.

Quiet Queenie

A few wips- sort of close. 
Things still need an hour each of love to lift and fix em/make things clear/fix shading
- but will I get to?

Blame the tool (s)

For the bad photos.

Its funny- looks great like the flash worked on the camera screen after taking the photo- but they turn out as if the flash wasn't on.
Have to get my scanner fixed.

Life drawing again.
Late again.
10 to 20 mins.

Sydney Supanova

Well I made it to Supanova in Sydney. I was a bit dubious about going- but I'd paid my money etc and so I had to- and just as well

because it was pretty good- and its nice to be among the beautiful people that populate these things .
(beautiful people  are fellow artists and visitors and cosplayers- not organisers/health and safety zealots and the like).
I actually really enjoy driving down because I get to get out of my burrow and see the world along the way- lots of beautiful trees and old farmhouses and rivers and bridges.

(And myriad shitty roadworks with 9 safety vest wearing baboons watching as a 10th scratches its bum  and holds a "slow" sign.-*only slight exaggeration-*.)

Also this time when I got to Sydney I knew where I was going- what I was doing and had a trolley to cart my gear so a stress free bump in for once.

I had a whole table for the Little Mates books and Dinosaur Rocks and Wombat went a Walking, and one for my other games and not for kids stuff.
Didn't have much time to check out other people but I did manage to
See people I knew:- Lesley Vamos had a great setup with very- I dunno- New york looking drawings?
and Serena Geddes passed by.
Saw Paul Caggegi , and met his wife and his insanely cute daughter.
See people whose work I knew:-  Selina Fenech  who had a stand of nice romantic faerie type images , and Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr who do work on the edge- kind of diametrically opposed to romantic faerie imagery.
Actually "SCAR" are a bit like australias Robert Crumb in term of being boundary pushing fringe dwellers for a long long time (minus the political and daily life commentary -replaced by graphic/extreme imagery).
Next table to me was Emerson Ward- a great guy with similar art taste, who helped me out (watched my stall- sold more of my stuff than me when he did etc). Thanks Emerson.
Across from me was Sarah Ellerton who'd put a lot of work into a graphic novel which looks very nice.
I met a few other people with interesting projects too- some which would be very nice to work on.
If I can survive the next 2 months and gets the books done that is . They (the Little mates ones) have taken all my time and put me in a world of hurt way way behind with the other things I need to do).
 On a bittersweet note I saw the progress of the Bottersnikes and Gumbles film- which I would love to have worked on (seems they went without me)- but which looks properly in the spirit and appealing- proof that its a good property..
On the topic of looking on the bright side- here is a pretty picture of dawn on the worst road in australia- Parramatta Rd.At the top of the post are some of the  drawings I did while at my table.

Had some really nice comments from people too- which has helped dissuade temporarily me from giving up and getting a real job as I was about to do last Thursday.
On the topic of books I had about 5 teachers come and praise the Little mates books and good response to the Dinosaur Rocks spreads.Fingers crossed for Dinosaur Rocks. I sold a bunch of Little Mates books and got lots of recognition from people who'd already bought them.
Which is nice after the "Dear John" letter (or Lachlan as the case may be ) I got from those Pinerolo residency people.

Gold!

No reason- logged in and saw how few posts this year compared to last and decided to cut and paste what I was doing in an attempt to up the ante.

.......as you were.

On a lighter note I get those scam job emails a bit- they always attempt to sound official (officious really) but don't have the appropriate grasp of english usage.
- the last one said glowingly " We have analised your professional skills".
Oh really?

Last night

Late as usual.
Drawing felt better/easier- didn't look it though.
Face is actually close I think.
A few big heads and big arms- misproportions
....anyway.
All 15 mins-ish.
Its funny- I go hoping I can forget about all my troubles for 2 hrs but find I'm drawing badly because I'm thinking about how behind I am in my work and how despite being overwhelmed by work I'm not making any money.....instead of thinking about the drawing in front of me .
Drawing with the book on your knee you have to be paying attention to holding the book steady, holding/drawing the pencil steady, looking at what you're drawing - remembering that bit, thinking about the humanity of the person you are drawing- trying to put that bit in a controlled fashion/hand eye coordinatedly on the page-

-not thinking about other things. (Although at least I kept my mind off the biscuits this week)
anything else and this is the result:-

My Fantastic Father

The advance sample arrived.
It looks pretty good-the cover looks nice.
Its nice to have something a bit 'manly' like crocodiles in a fathers day book.
A bit late to look for mistakes but there's  just a page where a tomato sauce bottle ended up falling in the gutter (the fold) as it were.
Ah well . Not too bad
My boys laughed and pointed in the right spots when they were read it.
Wish it had more of a story- but then someone was telling me how much greeting cards cost-
and each of these books doesn't cost much more but is a whole lot more.
But also with so few words and not much page acreage in the small version of the book its a bit difficult I suppose.

I am now working on the 20th book.
30 is the goal.

Actually I've been thinking about my audience. Reluctant readers is a term used a lot in these kids book circles as an admirable cause. Well the reluctant readers I'm aiming for are the dads- so I've tried to make it funny where I could and sort of blokey in a good way.