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here is a sneak preview of a brand new paperchase collection that will launch in time for the 'back to school season'. called cheeky chops its a lovely graphic range that has a feel of charely harper or alexander girard about it. animal faces are designed in circles and the typeface is simple, multicoloured and reminiscent of alphabet magnets. cheeky chops will be in stores and online soon.

finally today from paperchase - a selection of notebooks, sketchbooks, albums, journals and letter sets currently available in store.

Vern and Lettuce took a road trip to America and found it wasn't quite as rock 'n' roll as they thought it would be.



I had to draw this when I saw this fascinating photo of the two models for the famous painting posted on Retronaut:



The woman looks much more glam than she does in the painting, American Gothic by Grant Wood. Same tight mouth, though. The man looks exactly the same. I posted it on Facebook and my friend Alice wrote, 'I'll bet he never dared wear dungarees again'.

My dad's been sort of obsessed with this painting; he thought it summed up a certain American-style, salt-of-the-earth religious correctness but complete joylessness, and he was always doing his impression of it at dinner parties. I went to see the original painting in Chicago when I was sixteen. I was supposed to be looking at universities there, but I went to one and instantly disliked it, so I skived off and went to the art museum instead.

Here's the joyless picture I drew for my new Facebook profile photo. (Don't worry, you're not really missing anything over there.)



And my sister just posted this song of the day:

Juana Martinez-Neal is a children’s book illustrator currently based in Scottsdale, Arizona. She was born in Lima, the capital of Peru and started in the illustration industry at the age 16. After 5 years, she went to art school to get her education at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru – School of Fine Arts.

View more of her children’s illustration work here.

There’s a Whole Universe Out There:  World Building Workshop

 Given by John Cusick 

Written by Kelly Ann Owens

Hansel released his sister’s hand to check his GPS.   It had been two miles since leaving the sixth village house.  He returned the device to his satchel next to the spoons.  The last preserved palace should be… yup, lacquered licorice and lollipops straight ahead.  I wonder how well this former contest queen has aged, thought Hansel.  He inched toward the gingerbread door to read the faded gold type.  A shellacked blue ribbon identified the house:  First Prize – 1934.   “Just ask to see her golden mixing spoon,” instructed Hansel.  “And remember, don’t eat the sweets!” 

Imagination.  It is the key to world building. Take any familiar tale, such as Hansel and Gretel, add your own twist to it, and transform the texture of the story into something entirely new.   Authors can change the world. 

John Cusick used M.T. Anderson’s Feed to illustrate strong world building techniques.  Authors build worlds that readers can visualize in their minds.  This requires carefully crafting the story’s physical setting, time period, societal norms, and each character’s personal history in that world.    While listening to Anderson’s opening, participants were whisked away with engaging characters to a futuristic world. 

Mr. Cusick modeled fictional world building using two methods.  The outside-in approach begins with a world divided into regions.  For example, humans inhabit one half, wizards the other.  Build the wizards’ world by creating their education system, economy, and living arrangements.  Within the education system, delineate various schools.  Each school can be further subdivided into dormitories.  Living in one is the protagonist – ready to interact with every other part of this world. 

An alternative method takes the opposite approach; build from the inside out.  Begin with a character or incident, and create all of the parts of a society.  Some authors sketch a map to inspire story elements.  Others give the world a sense of history by traveling back in time.  Consider the setting one year ago, five years ago, ten years ago, and even a century ago.  Has the area been repurposed over time?  How do locals feel about it?  Do visitors feel the same?  Characters may look at places with completely different points of view.  Multiple layers of feelings add reality to the world you are creating. 

The setting and its constraints shape a character’s motivation.  Mr. Cusick challenged workshop participants to experiment with this concept during a writing exercise.  Starting with a known tale, Hansel and Gretel, participants built their own societal constructs for the children’s world, including the commerce, culture, and government of the society.  Writers created the established norms for the candy houses and their occupants.  The protagonists’ motivations for venturing into the woods developed.  The result:  as many variations of this timed-honored tale as participants in the workshop.   

World building.  It is more than just an address. It’s your character’s entire universe.

Kelly Ann, thanks for taking the time to share what you learned from John Cusick’s Workshop.  I was in John’s other workshop and he did a great job.  Sounds like he did the same good job with this workshop.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

I, Pet Goat II was directed by Louis Lefebvre at the Montreal area studio Heliofant. The sophisticated production design stirs mo-cap and keyframe animation into a mesmerizing Surrealist soup that is hard to stop looking at. Conversely, the film’s occult and spiritual symbolism—cataloged in excruciating detail on the company’s website—is almost embarrassing, like peering into the mind of a precocious high schooler who thinks he understands the world. If you can make it past that, there’s plenty to enjoy. Heliofant’s toolset consisted of Maya, Vray, FumeFX, and RealFlow.

(Thanks, Luke Buxton)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Canada, FumeFX, Heliofant, Louis Lefebvre, Maya, motion capture, RealFlow, Vray

Some of  Sun, Monday Tuesday from my sketchbook.

This is Makana’s mom. I would love the picture!!!

Toronto illustrator Frank Ferrao created a smart little extension for Photoshop and Illustrator:

This tiny little software was designed out of frustration from looking at the words ‘Sample Text’ in Adobe applications and imagining the copy in that font. As you will see the application is super simple and has no bells and whistles. It is not a font manager. It is a font preview extension for the designer in the trenches churning out logo’s, mockups and layouts on the fly. (via Preview Fonts Adobe Cs: Flash Illustrator Photoshow fireworks)

If you missed the fun at Arts Fest...

I was super excited to learn that The Pennsylvania Center for the Book named MELVIN AND THE BOY a 2012 Best Children's Book for Family Literacy!

This from their website:

The Pennsylvania Center for the Book works with hundreds of children's books each year while preparing booklists, activities, and curriculum materials. Our Family Literacy Activities Web page is designed to help parents and caregivers fill each child's world with a love of books. We consider these 13 titles—a Baker's Dozen—to be the very best picture books published in 2011. They fulfill the goals of family literacy programs across the nation: to create lifelong readers and lovers of books and to start with the youngest audience—preschool children.

I feel like all of Scott C’s Great Showdowns have been leading up to this sublime moment. Can’t wait for that Great Showdowns Book.

Thanks to my publisher/editor Justin Chanda and art director Laurent Linn for alerting me to the fact that Publisher's Weekly gave I'M BORED a starred review in their July 9th issue, woohoo!

An excerpt:

"It looks to be the ultimate ennui smackdown: a bored-out-of-her-gourd kid vs. an equally jaded potato... Debut illustrator Ohi’s minimalist, scraggly digital drawings are anything but boring, and speak volumes about irritation, desperation, and disdain."

Yaaaay! :-D

For those who aren't familiar with my book...

I'M BORED is a new picture book written by Michael Ian Black and illustrated by yours truly, coming out on Sept.4th from Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers. You can read about how the book was created plus see sketches and sample spreads in the I'm Bored Scrapbook. Parents, teachers and librarians may also want to check out the Super Secret I'M BORED Bonus Page.

You can also find I'M BORED on Facebook, Google+ and the Simon & Schuster website, and buy I'M BORED swag on Zazzle. All swag proceeds will go to  Breaking The Chain, a nonprofit literacy cause founded by Riley Carney. Breaking The Chain which works to put new books in high-risk, high-need elementary and middle schools.