Cap'n Chris P. Bacon

Well it's Monday and the start of another week of scribbling and doodling so............

...here's a pig dressed as a Pirate! :)

'Feline Baumgartner'

On Monday 14th October 2012, a man from Austria took a helium filled balloon up to a height of 128,000ft or 24 miles up into the earth's atmosphere. The door of the capsule opened, he stepped out, saluted to the world that stretched out before him and 'bunny hopped' off the platform *gulps*. His name is Felix Baumgartner, a guy who broke two records and pushed the boundaries of man. Any further up and I think he would have floated away, next stop, the International Space Station :)

So in recognition of this amazing feat here's my tribute to him.........

'Feline Baumgartner'

Boldly going where no cat has gone before. He was obviously feeling 'claws-trophobic' in the capsule but let's hope he doesn't 'paws' too long before jumping and that he doesn't reach 'hy-purrrr' space on the way down so he can live to tell the 'tail' *blows trombone and goes for a lie-down*

Well done Feline (and Felix) :)

A Character is Born......

So, I hear you all say....what goes into developing a character for a picture book?

You're sent the text, looks fab.

You're sent the dimensions....thanks, it's....book shaped!

Now you have to come up with the content and put some scribbles to those names and scenes.

This character is called 'Polly', from a recently published book called 'Pigeon Poo' by Little Tiger Press. A rollicking rhyming story that's all about a pigeon that poos all over a lovely town that Mrs Bucket would be proud of. Polly is one of the main characters that feels sorry for Pidge and comes up with a great idea for her new feathered friend.........but what is she going to look like?

The steps below show a few initial early sketches that I sent into LT.....

Some heads and faces worked, some didn't but after many phone calls, cups of tea (the odd slice of cake) and a few redraws we finally went along with........

...tad-ahhhhh *blows loud trumpet*...this one! We felt it had much more personality than some of the others and plenty of 'cute factor'! As you can see the artwork starts with a black line and is then gradually filled in with some funky textures and rendered to make her come alive. I particularly like her hair in this one and she looks pretty fashionable in her dazzling spotty tights and Dorothy Gale red shoes!

The final book looks like this with Polly sheltering from Pidge's splats and splots.....

.....the lesson here is, 'always leave the house with an umbrella, because you never know when a pigeon might poo on your head!' :)

This is my mess.....

Here is where I come up with all those scribbles, sketches, squiggles and doodles! There's even a lobster and a Mogwai! :)

*HEAR YE, HEAR YE*

I....am....back!

After two whole years away from updating it I thought I would jump back on the blog-bike and get peddling. I found myself updating my Facebook fan page more frequently so decided to have a break from the 'Blogosphere'. Still, there comes a time in an illustrators life where you have to carry on with something that you started way back in 2008 and bring it up to date......

So there will be :

New news,
New news about news,
New info about me &
New work......

....and to celebrate this momentous occasion, here's a monkey -      :)