Sparkle Creations September Release Preview: Mummy Oliver

This is my second post today, scroll down for the earlier post on Billie B Brown.

It is time for Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps September release preview! The theme is, you've guessed it, Halloween! I was briefed for two Halloween image for September. There was an initial muck up of the characters (my fault!). Accidentally I've selected Josh for the mummy theme only to find out Oliver was who Sparkle wanted :) 

Here goes my work process of the image.

This new stamps will be available on Saturday, September 10, 2011. Sparkle will be giving away a Mummy Oliver to one lucky person! For a chance to win visit her post here and follow the instructions!

 

I love how Alice Wertz used the stamp! So cute and spooky! Loving the purple hair especially!

Billie B Brown: Spotty Holiday

Wooh, only a few more days to go until I leave to the big Billie B Brown Australia Tour! Getting very nervous (about my other deadlines...) and excited (about the trip!).

Before that I will be going to the Rugby World Cup Opening Game tomorrow, NZ vs Tonga. The whole country is going totally crazy with rugby fever right now, very hard to concentrate on work, especially when I can hear rugby fans singing and cheering outside my apartment every day.

I'm actually not much of a rugby girl, but having a club rugby player as a partner it's impossible not to get swamped by all the madness- looks like the whole city will leave work early tomorrow for the big opening night!!

Anyway putting that aside, a second post on Spotty Holiday today! 13th book in the Billie B Brown series! Check out the first post here! The editor at Hardie Grant Egmont asked for a "fun" and a rather "funky" grandma. So for the first lot of roughs I put her in artistic outfits and a funky hat. After seeing the first roughs the editor suggested we make her into a more young looking, fashionable and a working grandma.

We want to avoid drawing adult faces in Billie books so I had to make sure she still looked "old". 



Wish I will look as good as her when I grow old!!



Giraffe Attack and new Go Girl Releases!

September is an exciting month! I have three new books coming out! The first is a picture book written by Chris Gurney published by Scholastic NZ, "Giraffe Attack".
I had so much fun illustrating this book. Chris's writing is full of beautiful rhythm and rhymes. Here is a little passage from the book:

"Golly gosh!" said Dad, as the door went wham-ker-bang.

"That fierce and flustery giraffe is making things go clang!"

Jack heard the handle on the door go sneaky-creaky-clack

and raced to lock it good and tight to stop Giraffe Attack!

 

Character roughs

Above shows work process from rough to adding colour....

Like any illustrator I am inspired by everything around me. I believe I had my old house in my mind when I drew this house up for the book. I used to live in a country side in Nagano of Japan. We were surrounded by organic farms and dad built his first house here. I took above photos when I visited Japan with my sister 5 years ago.Had a funny feeling seeing other people living in our old house..

Finished illustration!

 

Also two more new titles has been released for the Go Girl series, published by Hardie Grant Egmont.

I have to have a different mindset when illustrating for series books compare to illustrating for children's picture book. I am focusing more on the characters, their emotions and how they flow from chapter to chapter. Also I tend to have much less time to complete a series book, so the whole process is more spontaneous compared to a picture book, which usually take months and months to complete. For picture books I tend to treat each picture page like an artwork on its own as well as part of a whole story.

Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps: August Release

Rather a bit late post on the Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps August release! Better late then never....

August was a month of Football!

Being living in New Zealand, when Sparkle first briefed me for a Football Josh image I automatically drew Josh with soccer ball! Silly me. Anyway after the initial misunderstanding I came up with a Josh looking all buffed up, a nice change from his usual cool-street-boy-look!

Simonne Clay has created another wonderful card using the stamp! I am such a fan of her work!



Obviously Cheerleading Emily was a perfect duo match for the August release!

And here goes another wonderful creation by Simonne!



Lily The Littlest Angel:Has A Secret Cover

My editor at Scholastic has been telling me the two new Lily the Littlest Angel books has been rather successful amongst girls since their launch a couple of months ago! Here goes a post on the cover illustration for the second book in its series "Lily has a Secret". (can you guess what the secret is?)

 

Like the first cover I have tried out a few drafts. And image of Lily and the new kitten "Petal" on the moon popped in my head so I played around with that concept.

Playing around with different poses .... the last draft seemed to convey the most connection between Lily and Petal, so we went with that!

After the initial colouring I enhanced the moon more in the final version. Also changed Lily's mouth so that she looks like she is talking to Petal :)

The designer placed this on the background and walla!

The author Elizabeth Pulford has written a post about Petal and Frumplepuss in her Lily blog. Love finding out where the authors get their inspirations!