Hello everyone! It's been one year to this day since the last post. I didn't plan on this, just mere coincidence. Anyhow… 2018 is shaping up to be a great year. My very first book,
King Ben and Sir Rhino will be coming out in August! I'm in the final stages now with Amazon Two Lions in going over the proofs. Additionally, I'm working on interior illustrations for a YA novel which may wrap up in a couple months. So it's exciting times!
Lastly, I set out a goal to entirely pencil my very own graphic novel! Since my earlier years, I've always wanted to draw comics, and only now I think that the time has come to realize that goal.
About 12-13 months ago, I came up with the current iteration of
Artie and Merlo, a couple characters that I've been drawing for a long while now. I remember those specific moments when I was rattling my brain for the concept of the characters and their story. It was like a large jigsaw puzzle came into focus in mere seconds. When the idea came, so came the story and I started writing. Needless to say, with much help, the story went through continuous iterations until it came to where I'm extremely proud of it.
Now comes the fun part of drawing it! So for the goal that I started back in mid December, I hope to completely pencil the graphic novel by the end of May/beginning of June. Having paged everything out, I think it's going to be around 155 pages. Which is CRAZY! I've never tackled so large a project for myself, but I'm super excited for the goal.
In addition to this goal, I plan on using my nascent
Instagram account to show my progress of
Artie and Merlo by posting each finished page as I continue. I kinda failed the first 31 pages I've done so far and didn't get around to posting any of them until today! However, now that I'm all caught up, I hope to share this work in progress as it comes to fruition!
Lastly, some sample
Artie and Merlo pages!
Whelp! It's been a productive and eventful year, but there are many new exciting opportunities on the horizon in 2019. I look forward to a couple school visits that will be happening in the near future reading King Ben and Sir Rhino. Additionally, I'm still hard at word on Artie and Merlo. As of now, I've finished all the writing and sketches (158 pages worth, *phew!*)! Besides a couple edits and changes, I'll start plowing into final art work shortly! I hope to in the near future share some of my favorite pages before they're inked and colored.
