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Laura Jennings drawing for Shard Studios

Laura Jennings grew up surrounded by animals in the Texas Hill Country town of Kempner.

“I trained my first dog, a Rottweiler for obedience when I was 12,” she says.

Maybe that’s why the dynamic animals she’s created for the role playing game Shard  look like people you might  know — almost  old friends you wouldn’t mind going with you on a harrowing adventure.

 Oh, humans played their parts in her youth, too, and books – fantasy novels mainly — and video games.  “I used to sit and watch my brother play Zelda and Mario for hours,” she says.

After studying fine arts at Central Texas Community College and Texas Tech University, Laurie enrolled in the design art  programming and animation sequence at Austin Community College, She has set her sites on the fields of video game art and character creation.  

“The Lion King changed my life.  I loved the action, the movement.   I don’t have the patience for animation, but that’s what I’m into,” she says.

“At school we’re doing the old  pegboard animation, like the crews did for Bambi , they still ask for the same kind of detail in the industry. 

“Everybody going into this wants to design, do storyboards and be a lead character artist. It’s the very first graphic the public sees.

“I do go for games, and it is pretty astonishing – the emerging media and the economic growth that’s been predicted for games and computer art in the next 50 years. 

“Austin has something like 50 studios; they’re mostly small. In this room there’s an animator and you can walk right next door and take it to the programmer.”

“Video game art is  a combination of animated movie and comic book and it’s  interactive. Some of the most gorgeous art I’ve seen has been in the animation of Nintendo and Capcom games, such as Squaresoft Final Fantasy series and Legend of Zelda.    

Laura also feels pulled by graphic novels and children’s books and attends meetings of the Austin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (Austin SCBWI). 

“People think children’s book illustration is easy. It’s actually cutting edge. There are similarities to game art, such as the storyboarding and the composition and how you have to know your story visually so very well. The work of James Gurney holds its metal against any fine art happening today and he (and others like him) have chosen literature, which I thank them for.”

"Puffy pants" character from the Shard land, drawing by Laura Jennings

Laura “liked the idea of puffy pants” for her fantasy
character for the game Shard, designed by art director Scott Jones.

 ”I was trying to turn a lot of the animal motifs on their heads.  So I wanted to make this Aesop’s-like skunk a bit coquetish, like she’s waiting for Pepe Le Pew.”

 Shard is a table-top  role playing game “of heroic fantasy, set in the Realm of Dardunah, World of the False Dawn,”
the website says.   “Players may choose from a wide variety of animal  people who are the main cast of the many adventures the world offers.” 

Dardunah is a medieval Shangrila, far east of Middle Earth. (I spent some time poking around the site. I must say I’m ready for the movie to come out.) 

Laura recalls, “I don’t know what it was that got their attention, but they saw some of my art and told me, ‘We see that you’ve done a bunch of animal creatures.’”

“Actually there were  three of us working on the game’s characters. We had to make it look like all of the illustration was done by one person. We each worked in our own category – I didn’t want  the insects, snakes and reptiles so I raised my hand and said, ‘I’ll take the mammals!’ “

One of the animal people drawn by Laura Jennings for the RPG "Shard"

 She had to research animals in their natural settings, and come up with props, costumery and accessories that  ”fit” into this world with its Persian and Asian flavors, she says. 

“I had to find out what old armour looks like, leggings and foorwear, what kind of robes students of a temple would have worn.” 

For the fellow in the game at the right, a seashore dweller, she found photo reference of an otter, stopping by a river, panting.

Pencil drawings were scanned and values were added in Photoshop using the smudge tool and the dodge and burn tool.

“I had a lot of fun with the textures in Photoshop, learning to push things around.

“I was asked to  re-do a squirrel monster because the armor looked too much like beat-up metal. Metal is a material of our world  – whereas in Dardunah, the armor is made of crystal.

 ”The  foundation was in natural media,” she says. “But there was a little bit of cleanup in Corel Painter 9, which replicates whatever natural medium you’re using — in this case it was pencil. The art  was finished and polished in Corel Painter 9.

 ”There’s a lot of movement and dynamic in my own work,” Laura says.

“I’ve been very gestural for a long time. I’m only just now starting to work on the edges, the contour.

“My sketches are half reference — half imagination. Many of them are just from little thumbnail sketches. As I look at these  I’m seeking that pose that speaks about inner character. I’m asking, ‘What has punch. What is moving, or defining,” Laura says.

“In video games, the silhouette is so important. Their silhouettes define who they are in the game.”

Ursine warrior realized by Laura Jennings. He's a character from the role playing card game, Shard.

Laura Jennings’ fun blog  is now on our blogroll.  You’ll find her art there, too and on her Deviant Art gallery page, where she’s posted some graphic novel panels, backgrounds and more of her exquisite characters.  Deviant Art features concept art by teen and young adult artists from around the world.

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Mark Mitchell hosts How To Be A Children’s Book Illustrator. 
Check out the free lessons of his short course, Power Color: The Keys to Color Mastery  here.  

 
Video by Sean Cunningham for the KLRU Public Television series Docubloggers


“We’ll chase the cats.

” ‘N watch the bats.

“Do yoga on mats.

“Eat pizza till the sun comes up…”

I had to quote from the Ray Benson song My Name is Nacho because it’s so singable (and so Austin  — especially the watch the bats and do yoga on mats part… Well, the eat pizza till the sun comes up part, too — it’s a college town, after all.)

Emma Virjan, the author-illustrator of Nacho the Party Pup  is a hit with the baby board book set ,as well as with any of us who know her. 
She hangs out with our Austin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) – when she’s not behind her drawing board meeting deadlines.  As she explains in the video, she has her own design agency.

Emma had been dreaming and doodling around with her Nacho puppy character since 1995, telling herself stories about him, putting him on greeting cards, making piles of drawings of him having adventures in various settings.  Back in the fall, Random House Children’s Book Division published the first book version.

It’s a board book that sparkles not only with real sparkles on the cover, but with a sly, creative humor that would tickle most party animals of any age.  It also  features bright colors and flaps that you can open to check out what’s behind them. 

Random House will bring out  ”volume #2″,  Nacho the Downward Dog  (in which Nacho learns yoga –what else?) next fall.

Since the release of Nacho the Party Puppy, Emma has been delighting young and old audiences at schools and bookstores, as you can see from the video.

I had the privilege of seeing her interact with the kids at Bookpeople (actually the same signing event  in this video.) I can tell you  it was quite a party. Three year olds were dancing in the aisles. The rest of us were wearing little white party hats that Nacho had cut out  for us the night before.

On Nacho’s website you can hear his song sung by Asleep at the Wheel’s Ray Benson ( a  fan).  You can also see some fun animations them and read Nacho’s interview with Emma. Truly you don’t want to miss getting on Nacho’s  birthday mailing list, so let me give you the URL, too,  for your address records:  www.nachothedog.com 

Fun as it was, Nacho’s  interview with Emma didn’t answer quite all of my technical process and philosphical questions, so I conducted my own with her. (Nacho didn’t mind. He gave me a paw high five and said, ‘Go for it!” )  

 Okay,  so here here we go:

One would expect a dog named Nacho to be a Chihuahua and yet…he is a beagle. A bit like Snoopy in “Peanuts”  – but a more of a frat boy. He’s in the middle of the action.

 In 1995, I was taking creative writing classes at Parsons. I lived in Connecticut, so getting to NY was easy. I was taking a writing class that was designed specifically for visual artists and designers.

Nacho was born in that class. But he wasn’t part of an assignment. We weren’t asked to create a character for a children’s book.

The class was filled with so many creative individuals, especially Esther Cohen,( http://www.esthercohen.com ) the writer who taught the class, that I was inspired to try all sorts of new things. Nacho magically appeared as a natural by product to the class.

If you had to describe Nacho in words on the back of your business card, could you do it? What would you (or he) say?

  Nacho is a fun-loving, hat-wearing pooch, enjoying adventures and spreading laughter wherever he goes. At least that’s what I want him to portray. Hopefully that comes across in the drawings and stories. 

 Does Nacho really eat cheese?

 He loves all types except Lindberger. Too stinky. He enjoys cheddar cheese on crackers and feta cheese with olives. He thinks Gruyere makes the best grilled cheese. He sometimes makes his own mozzarella and eats it with tomatoes and basil.

 You told me quite a story one time last year about how you got your foot in the Random House door with this book.  Didn’t it actually involve making an in-person pitch to an editor (or was it several people?) at the N.Y. offices? A pitch session for a baby board book!  That was an amazing story to me — and I’ll always admire your nerves of steel.

It all goes back to Esther Cohen, mentioned earlier. She was over the top about Nacho and so she was one of the recipients of the Nacho greeting cards.

Somewhere at the beginning of 2005, I think it was, she said that he looked fresher and better than he ever looked and that I should show him to Edite Kroll, the woman who is now my agent. I didn’t have full manuscripts though, just drawings. Esther said to show them to Edite just the same.

Edite helped me narrow down what I had into manuscripts with drawings. I put together a package for her and she sent it off to Kate Klimo (also mentioned above) for her review.

It just so happened that in May of 2005, shortly after I had sent the comps, I was in NY. Edite asked me if I wanted to meet with Kate while I was there and I said yes, of course. That’s the right answer.

Edite teed up the meeting as a “go and pitch Nacho in general” meeting. I wasn’t pitching one book over the other. I thought I was going in to do just that, pitch Nacho a little more, which I did.

Kate had liked what she saw of Nacho in the younger age group, the board book age, and offered me a two book contract. I’m still in shock.

I never expected an offer in that meeting, much less an offer for two books.I had never planned for Nacho to start in that young of a group. I see him as much older. But I was (and still am ) willing to see where/how he goes and grows in that market.

I think it brings up a great point  – that even children’s book illustrators or author-illustrators have to be fearless salespeople, and be ready to take massive action to make their projects a reality.

They must take the fates of their projects into their own hands. Do you agree?  Is it important for even picture book author/illustrators to have “elevator pitches” prepared about their characters and/or stories?

 Yes. A character and/or story is a brand, after all, and all brands need to have their elevator pitch, the one to three things that defines them. I’ve worked in advertising most of my career and I work with clients all the time about creating their product’s elevator pitch. What’s been interesting to me is to be in a position where I have to practice what I preach regarding Nacho. It’s been hard at times because he’s personal.

Have you always had this chutzpah in you — or did you just manufacture it in yourself because Nacho was important to you?

I think it goes to what you said above about taking action and being fearless. I think it takes a whole lot of c-c-c-c-ourage, as the Cowardly Lion would say. 

There are those artists that are perfectly ok with showing you all of their work and then there are those that are shy about it. I fall into the latter category, so when I do show it, I end up feeling a bit vulnerable. In that state, it’s hard to pitch my character. It’s definitely a growing edge for me.

 I shared with them that I wanted a song. Talk turned to “Well there are so many artists in Austin. Try one here. Who would you want?”

What was it like working on this book? Did you do a thumbnail storyboard, and then a dummy?  Must a picture book author for young children have a sense of humor?

Working on the book was extreme fun…and a little anxiety producing. I can be a bit of a perfectionist and sometimes it can get in the way of actually creating. But for the most part, it was literally, a dream come true to work on it.

 It all started with a few sketches of Nacho in birthday scenes. From there, I wrote the text. I did all the black and white sketches first and made a dummy.

The dummy went to RH for approval. Once the b&w dummy was approved, then I took the sketches in Photoshop and Illustrator and added color. 

Yes, a sense of humor is a must for picture book authors.

 Nacho the Party Puppy is a board book — but it is also like one of those sturdy, elaborate fold-out Birthday Cards —- and yet it is priced more affordably than most of those cards. Was this “Card quality” a deliberate direction you wanted to take, since you are — after all – a graphic designer?  Have you made a lot of cards in your business?

I’ve always made my own greeting cards. I love to make them. Some of Nacho’s first manifestations were in greeting cards that I made for family and friends. Everyone kept responding well to him and would tell me, “You need to show these to someone.”

With that encouragement, I took Nacho from card fronts to little vignettes. I’d then write stories around the vignettes and that’s when he started shaping up.

I didn’t originally think of the flaps for the board book.

It was Kate Klimo, VP of Children’s Books at Random House (also my editor), who said, “What if the book had flaps? Where/How would you use them?”

That opened it up for me. My background as a graphic designer kicked in and I created the flaps. Then I worked with RH to figure out best places for them in terms of production.

Was it hard to create this book? Did it take you long to get it right?

  It took a lot longer than I thought it would. As a graphic designer, I’m used to quick turnarounds and thought it would be the same for the book.

But because it’s personal work and not business, I would draw and redraw a scene more than I normally would until I thought it was right. (See above about being a perfectionist.)

I had a deadline and that helped. It forced me to stop noodling pages and get it done.

You’re also doing a lot of post-publication promotions of the book, lots of author-talks and appearances, especially with little 2 and 3 year olds in attendance. Do you feel this kind of activity is important for a children’s author?  

Absolutely. Above all, it promotes books and reading. As groovy as the computer and the Internet are, books are still so important, at least in my mind. I know that I was influenced by authors who came to speak to me in school. It gave the books voice and made them real. Second, it promotes Nacho. It’s a great way to get Nacho introduced to a lot of people at once. 

Do you draw Nacho on the computer?

All Things Nacho begin with a black Sharpie and tracing paper. Once I have the drawings to my liking, I scan them as bitmaps. The bitmaps are then placed in Illustrator, where I add text and color. I’ve toyed around with making the bitmaps vector images, but it kind of takes away the sketchy feel I get with the marker.

Have you always liked board books? If the answer is yes, is it the designer in you that likes them?

I like board books because you don’t have to be gentle with them. I like that they create a visual and tactile experience. AND the designer in me loves putting them together.

Nacho has a very cute web site that makes all kinds of sounds — and sends out Nacho  e-greetings to children and adults on their birthdays. Did you always envision the website to go with the book?

The web site serves to promote three things; a. Nacho in general as a character, b. the books and c. my work as an illustrator. Soon there will be more things for kids to download – puzzles, word searches, etc. and some stuff that teachers can use in the classroom that feature Nacho. There will also be a poetry café, as Nacho fancies himself a poet.

Nacho interviews you on the site ’s About page.
But he never asked you about your “process” creating a picture book. Can you tell us just a bit about how that works for you?

Sometimes I start with drawings and then create the words and sometimes it’s the other way around. Most of the time I have ideas or phrases that eventually work themselves into full text for a book. There are drawings and more drawing and more drawings. The process for me involves a ton of drawings, which for me is the most fun.

 And how’s the yoga book going? Is it hard to draw a dog in yoga postures?  

Nacho the Downward Dog, complete with small flaps, is scheduled for release this September. It was my dog, Maddie, that inspired me to draw Nacho in yoga poses, especially downward dog. The pose for cow was a little difficult to get Nacho into, but it all worked out. 

Thank you for the fantastic interview, Emma! 

And congratulations on the success that I’m sure will continue with Nacho. (And congratulations to you, too, Nacho.)

Update – Check out another great interview with Emma  just posted by Cynthia Leitich Smith  in Cynsations, the cynsational children’s literature blog.

Before we close out with Nacho’s own video and Ray Benson’s (complete) party puppy Texas swing song, I wanted to mention two additions to our blog roll — artists Karien of South Africa and Marsha Riti of Austin.   Illustrator-bloggers from different sides of the planet, welcome! 

About the Author: Mark G. Mitchell hosts the How to Be A Children’s Book Illustrator blog and teaches an unusual  online course in children’s book illustration. 

 
Animation video by Emma Virjan

'Sir Peggedy' visits the pirate ship in "A Pirate's Night Before Christmas"

 The other is the new  A Pirates Night Before Christmas, by Philip Yates, illustrated by Sebastia Serra (Sterling .)  

"A Pirate's Night Before Christmas" by Phillip Yates and illustrator Sebastia Serra

I guess there would be one more, and that would be the classic  A Child’s Christmas in Wales by the poet Dylan Thomas, but that’s because of the fascinating wash illustrations by the great Edward Ardizzone. (David R. Godine, Publisher)

 But how amazing is that when the two quintessential (modern)  Christmas picture books you can think of are by writers from your own tribe,  in your own town?

Yates is a poet and humorist as well as an author, and in “Pirate’s Night Before Christmas, he applied all three gifts to a sea-yarn retelling of Clemment Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas.”

“I wrote the whole story by asking questions and putting myself into this workd that is uniquely the pirates,”  he told Cynthia Leitich Smith in her children’s and YA literature blog Cynsations.

“That’s what writing successful picture books is all about — asking the right questions and letting the answers come in the most heartfelt way. “

How would pirates celebrate Christmas? Yates wondered.

They would be too bad and mean to deserve a visit from Santa come so they would need their own ornery ’sea dog’ version of Santa — and he would drive a marine sleigh pulled by seahorses!

The rhyme structure of Moore’s famous Christmas classic is  anapestic tetrameter. It’s the meter  also found in Dr. Seuss’s beloved Yertle the Turtle and Cat in the Hat, Yates said.

“It’s a breezy, whimsical, magical form that just flows beautifully and is highly contagious when read out loud,” he  told Smith. 

To prepare to put new language and new word pictures into old poetic forms, Yates steeped  himself  in pirate lore – ”the grammar, the slang, the history, the parts of the ship… ” he told Smith.

Actually composing the poem took him only two days.

He sent the ms out to five publishers and received offers from three!

He went with Sterling, who offered first, and Sterling pulled in talented Spanish illustrator Sebastia Serra, who lives in a village on the  Mediterranean coast near Barcelona.

Children’s book illustrators and pirates have a special relationship with each other  that pre-dates Disney and Johnny Depp.

Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth leap to mind, and so does Gustaf Tenggren.

Serra’s pirates evoke wooden toys, marionettes and bright-colored sea creatures.  There’s something oddly menacing about them, as there should be — particularly that  ’outlaw santa’,  Sir Peggedy. 

Serra’s  illustrations for the book were created with pencil and ink on parchment,  and then digitially colored.

Pirates — even cliche pirates —  are never cute — not in the best  depictions of them that resonate with children and the child in all of us. 

Robert Louis Stevenson knew this.  Long John Silver had us wondering up until  the very end of Treasure Island  if he was a bad guy or a good guy. We were never sure, not even after turning the novel’s last page, although he usually treated young Jim Hawkins decently.  

As in the word portraits of pirates, pictures of pirates must include some minor key sounds – disturbing elements  in the colors, details of the caricatures, or the ’spirit’ behind a scene (even when the Christmas socks are hung from the bowsprit with care.)

Pirates in children’s picture books can be poignant and a tiny bit  endearing.  But if they come off too cuddly, they’re just wrong!  Children get this.   And so do Yates and Serra.

Serra's pirate ship from "The Pirate's Night Before Christmas"

 Yates talked with us about the illustrations that appear in his book. 

 When you were writing, were you imagining the pictures in the book-to-be? Did you kind of visually  “thumbnail” the whole work in your head? 

Or did you mainly focus on the language of the poem – already sort of knowing  that the stanzas would  work as a rollicking, page turning, picture book experience.

A lot of the creation of the narrative involved inserting pictures in my head as I wrote.  I knew the structure of the poem’s anapestic meter so well that I trusted the language to guide me on the voyage. The poem already works and has stood the test of time for nearly 190 years. Since the language was already there, I just had to pop in the images that worked best.

I immersed myself so thoroughly in the pirate world that the images came first and guided the language. For example, in the opening stanzas, I couldn’t hang stockings from chimneys so I had to research how pirate ships looked and where a stocking would hang and it wasn’t until I came across a picture of a bowsprit that  I realized it was a perfect place to hang a stocking.

But with what? Well, I found illustrations of ships that used tar to make repairs and since tar rhymes with thar,the two came together in perfect synchronicity.

I’m not an illustrator, but the book truly was guided by the  ”picture” first, the “narrative” second.

From "The Pirate's Night Before Christmas"

Were you permitted any kind of  communication with Sebastia Serra during the illustration process? 

The whole discovery of Serra was simply amazing and all credit is due my editor at Sterling Publishing. Serra had submitted a portfolio to Sterling and one look at his artwork and they knew he was perfect. All the communication regarding the artwork was done between Serra and Sterling, or Sterling and me. I never spoke to him by phone,
communicated by email, or anything. It would have been heavenly to talk to him, but sometimes you have to trust your art director and this was a case where I totally put my trust in them from the start.

Were you given an opportunity to share ideas about the art. (Or did you even want such an opportunity?)

I had very little to contribute since the art was so splendid. I almost think it was eerie how perfectly he captured the world I envisioned. But there were tiny things like “I want to see more seaweed on Sir Peggedy,” or “His tooth needs to be golder,” since this was boldly expressed in the verses themselves.

I also wanted more  people of all colors and races because pirate worlds were pretty diverse, when you think about it.

Any insight into why your editor at Sterling selected
Sebastia to illustrate?

His artwork was modern, moody, had an edgy quality to it that was appealing. Similar to Lane Smith, I think. Lots of clutter, but I mean that in a postive way. Detail upon detail. He could also handle crowds of pirates in one picture, which, when you look at the illustrations, you can see this was necessary. They were also struck by the world he had created on his own with my language as the starting board—the monkey running around,
the fish hanging on the Christmas tree, the treasure map with it’s unique geography. It was all in the details. 

'Sir Peg' with the men. Illustration by Sebastia Serra

What was (is) your reaction to his art for the book when you saw it?

I was overwhelmed, to be honest.  As I said earlier, it felt like some telepathic thing had been going on between us. After seeing all the illustrations together for the first time, it almost felt like he had been looking over my shoulder the whole time I was writing it, it
was that spooky. But mostly, to be honest, was the feeling that I had accomplished what I set out to do—I had given him enough of this world so that he could go off on his own and expand it and give it his own twist.

At one reading recently, a parent came up to me and she thought I had done the illustrations and was surprised when she saw Serra’s name on it.

She said that the language and the visuals so perfectly meshed and how did it manage to come out without me even being in the same room with him. I was also proud because now he has several illustrator offers on his table, thanks to the Pirate’s success.

Have you done any kind of teamed promotional activity with Serra? Or are there plans to team the two of you somehow on the promotional circuit?

Well, Sebastia’s in Barcelona, Spain and here I am in Austin. He has been promoting it as best he can, but I imagine that  it’s difficult to translate Clement Moore’s poem from English into Spanish without messing with the rhyme or meter in some way. I imagine the story can be told successfully in Spanish because the pictures are so great. I do hope to meet him some day and he is eager to team up again on another project, but right now it’s difficult for both of us to get together.

Author Phil Yates

I saw this animated film on an art blog and knew I had to commandeer it for my own blogging purposes.

It’s an older work by Seattle animator Tony White who posted it on youtube a few weeks ago: a life of Katsushika Hokusai – with convincing animations of  a few of the great images of this 19th century woodblock print master. 

I remember sitting in the Fine Arts Library at the University of Texas years ago, sketching, copying a Hokusai drawing for an assignment in Life Drawing class — and just marvelling and admiring.

White suggests that this always modern-seeming draftsman (who died in 1849) would have been an animator if he were alive today.  I look at his work and think “children’s illustration.”

Of course you can’t invoke Hokusai without also mentioning that other print master of Edo (Tokyo) whose name also started with an “H.”

June is so yikes-hot in  Austin, Texas.  So enjoy this video of the wintery Agano Snow Scene by Utagawa (Ando) Hiroshige.  He was influenced by Hokusai, who was just a few years ahead of him.
 

Hiroshige has an out-of-this-world-distinction as a graphic artist.  A  crater on the planet Mercury is named after him.

BTW, my ASK survey for my upcoming How to illustrate Children’s Books online course  is winding down. However you can still get four free months of the class by going to

 this link

and answering the question you see on the screen. 

The class begins in just a couple of weeks.  Your suggestion will be greatly appreciated.

Author-illustrator Mark G. Mitchell hosts “How to be a children’s book illustrator.”