Thea Stilton #5 out NOW!

It's finally here!  Papercutz presents Thea Stilton #5 - The Secret of the Waterfall in the Woods!  This was what I spent a solid 2 weeks on last summer, coloring night and day.  I am SO PROUD of how beautifully this book came out!  It's so satisfying to hold a copy in my hands after all that hard work.

Thea has much more detailed shading than when I colored the Power Rangers.  You can see the different Photoshop brush textures I used in the pine needles, trunks, and rocks.  Lots of nature scenes in this book, which has an eco-friendly message.  The five Thea Sisters of Mouseford Academy solve mysteries, and this episode features saving a family of bears in the woods.  There's danger, deception, teen angst, cuteness, and more!

One of the challenges in coloring this book was the sheer number of characters - lots of crowd scenes like above, with many pages having around 30 characters each!  When you're coloring 46 pages on a tight deadline, that adds up.  Luckily, I was able to get a flatter (Matt Herms) to help with half the pages.  Delegation gets stuff done.

I'll be at the IPG booth doing signings and sketches for Papercutz at C2E2 in Chicago!  C2E2 is March 18 - 20, and I'll do a signing each morning, as well as be at my artist alley table i16a the rest of the time.  I'll do a separate C2E2 blog later.  So much going on!  But that's a good thing.

Speaking of books, this Daily Misfortune was inspired by my mom.  Yep, last month is was just her and the librarian.  A die hard mystery novel lover.

Brooklyn Book Festival This Weekend!

Did you know the Brooklyn Book Festival is this weekend?  Actually, they've been having all kinds of interesting events all around Brooklyn this week leading up to it, and they're celebrating the Festival's 10th Anniversary!  I'll be signing/sketching Power Rangers (and possibly Thea Sisters??  Wow that would be a miraculous turn-around time for that book!) at the Papercutz booth for Kid's Day this Saturday Sept 19 from 3-4pm and also Sun Sept 20 from 2-3pm.  Papercutz is numbered as 308 booth #3, in the Metro Tech Commons.  The address is: 1 MetroTech Roadway, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Saturday has lots of kids programming and activities, like live readings and pop-up book workshops.  There are quite a few comic related events going on too!  George O'Connor is talking about his Olympians comic series along with other cartoonists and authors Saturday at 2pm.  On Sunday at 1p, cartoonists Ayun Halliday and Leslie Stein join 30 Rock actor Judah Friedlander at the Brooklyn Historical Society "for a conversation about creativity, performance and the incessant inspirations of ordinary life, and making light out of the dark in our day-to-day."  More events are scattered around the Downtown Brooklyn area.  And of course there will be TONS OF BOOKS too :)  Actual books.  Like, not on your iPad.

ALL FESTIVAL EVENTS ARE FREE!!

TICKETS ARE NOT REQUIRED
SOME BOOKEND EVENTS CHARGE ADMISSION

In other news, I made a Facebook event for my Super Week comic reading on October 7th!  It's never too early to start planning.  If you're around NYC the day before NYCC begins, come celebrate with me in Bushwick!  Ironically, I'm still on the wait list to get an artist alley table, which makes me nervous.  Hopefully I can squeak in somehow.  If you know of any cartoonists who may be looking to split their table last-minute, please let me know!

As a freelancer, usually every day is different.  I didn't get a headache doing Photoshop for 20 hours a day, but after 4 hours of intense research, correspondence, reading text online, etc, my brain is unsettled.  Probably has to do with the blue light the screen emits.  Which is why reading from an actual book is much better!  Which is why you should go to the Brooklyn Book Fest this weekend!  ;)

Thea Sisters Coloring!

I'm back to life after about 2 weeks of the most intense work I've had since art school.  I colored a Thea Stilton book for Papercutz!  The characters are all humanized mice and everything is super cute and they go around solving mysteries and saving nature.  One of their books is even titled "Saving Five Puppies."  THIS IS THE SERIES FOR ME.  The coloring style was more complex than the Power Rangers coloring I did, because there were more textured backgrounds and highlights vs just making a shadow with a solid line.  But it's great learning new Photoshop coloring techniques! 

When you work from home, it's important to go outside at least once a day.  I went outside because I kept running out of food :POccasionally just for a walk.  And of course, it was beautifully gorgeous weather every single day I had to be inside working from like 10a-5a (that's not a typo... yes on the good days it was 5 hours sleep).  But after I finished the project, it's all rainy and crappy out like today :/  Why don't I ever get coloring gigs in the winter?  Although maybe in that case, the stir-craziness could be worse, because you want to go outside, but at the same time, don't want to.

But I really like having intense projects like this - I really get into a groove of cranking work out and I'm really proud of the work I did.  It's nice to be just working on one thing for awhile instead of 10 different things.  Although I'm still catching up on the other 9 things...