Avast! Thank Ye and Hear Ye!

Well, well, well...

if it isn't the illustrious Andrea Jones, author of Hook & Jill, consorting once again with the flagitious Captain Hook.

Just something I whipped up not too long ago to both take a break from the creation of pictures for my interquel and as a way to say "Thank you!" to Andrea for having a gander at a revised section of said interquel.

The revision had been at her request, to solve a problem of congestion of information and introductions to characters.  I'm happy to say that my rewrites satisfied her and thus took care of the issue.  I'd thought it had as well, but it's nice to have a Pan fan (and the one who targeted the botched bit) and fellow writer agree.

Further report on the status of illustrations for Peter Pan: Betwixt-and-Between - nearing the finish line, folks.  For a little while I'd not been sure what to depict for the next chapter.  But I've just had an idea which might work.  I'll give it a whirl and see how it turns out.  Fortunately the picture to try for utilizes an image I'd been hoping to incorporate.  Glad to have found a place for it...?  I suppose I'll find out!  I've since shown the pictures I already have to even more folks... always well received and some sort of "How did you do that?" question comes up.  Thank goodness.

Beyond that, there are just two more pictures to be done.  Well, at least two.  I might be inspired to produce more than one for either chapter.  But thinking ahead to what's in those chapters I'm not inclined to think I'll be making other scenes for them.  Won't say "never" so to speak, though.

(Another photo manipulation of "Hook & Jones" can be seen on this post.)

And if you don't already have a copy of her amazing book, go get one... 
for I heard tale that the sequel, Other Oceans is also fixing to make its splash!

Andy's...Real?

Well, it's a good thing I brought the wrong file yesterday/today. Creatng "real" fictional characters from various pictures can be a delicate process. Perhaps I'd been overtired when I decided Andy looked good. I had Bart take a gander. He kind of winced, then made his suggestions. I agreed with his tweaks, but I also had to work under the restraint that it still look like Andy. Happily, it does, even more so. So there he is on the left, folks.

The boy in Midnight Chaser.

Off to the other side is a little pic I whipped up to show him with Zihn. Yes, I'm aware that they are not "fully integrated" into the background. I could probably accomplish that if I spent enough time on it. But I like them "popping out." As I've said before about these imaginary photos, I'm not trying to win any sort of photo manipulation prize. They're not even necessarily good. I make them just for my pleasure and as a fun "tool" in writing. And I think they're pretty cool.



As vaguely promised, I've included a "back of the book" type synopsis. Chances are it will be rewritten or even scrapped. Time will tell - HA.
Click on the image to make it larger/read text.

Candid Character

I talked about listening to my characters yesterday. As I've said in a previous post, I like to be able to see my characters, too. In that post, I also explain my tendency to "Frankenstein" photographs of my fictional friends.

Since he's already out in the world via the button for What If It's a Trick Question? on the left, I thought I'd show you a "snapshot" of Jeremy Strache. [As if you haven't already seen him on the cover!] I'm not trying to win any sort of graphic manipulation award. Nor am I looking for praise of my skill or lack thereof. Just sharing a simple but fun assist in the writing process. In case you're wondering what I do with them, they make great inspirational desktops.

This picture is taken along a route I frequent. In fact, it became the route that leads Jeremy into adventure in the book. You'll find a yellow jeep in the novel, too. Athough this exact moment does not appear in the story, I could not resist placing him into a picture taken during the month of October with a yellow jeep on the route, now could I?

A little fun with characters...

This is a little bit of wishful thinking I had using PhotoShop. Another one of Disney's triumphs happened to be Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. (I did like the sequels, but certainly not nearly as much and had some 'issues' with them, but nothing major.) I do so love the character of Captain Jack Sparrow and couldn't help myself from pitting him against Peter Pan. Like I said, it's just a bit of fun. I'm not suggesting that this pairing should or could happen. But's only natural to think about it. Pirates, Pan...you know... ;)

Photos of the Imaginary

I have photographs of fictional people.

I’ll explain.
Let me start by saying that I find it helpful to draw my protagonists. Occasionally I will depict other characters as well. They are in the same style as my self caricature. Later I discovered how valuable PhotoShop could be to enhance the cartoon personalities. Not only for coloring but for such augmentation as the denim texture and shading. As my graphic manipulation skills improved, I realized even more could be done.

I now piece together realistic “photo” versions of my characters. I use various bits from different pictures (one person’s eyes, another’s nose, etc.) and tweak them further on the virtual art board into the characters in my mind’s eye. One boy in particular is created from seven others. It’s easy to dress them, too, since I can simply change the color of the perfect flannel pattern, for example.

Just another way to bring my characters to life – a modern day Frankenstein in two dimensions.