Concept Sketch: Dylan Dolphin for Book 3 of the Adventures of Jimmy Jay

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This is half-finished sketch of Dylan Dolphin. I had about an hour to work on my book today, and this is what I came up with. Believe it or not, Dylan is supposed to be a cute kid dolphin, but he looks like a dangerous bruiser. I think I’ll keep him that way. If I’m going to write these books, I might as well write a book that I would want to read.

Look at those teeth! Some varieties of dolphins have up to 250 of them. However, bottlenose dolphins have about 50. Still, that’s an intimidating grin. I like it.

Yet Another Dolphin Concept Sketch

I worked late again at my outside job, until 6:30 pm. My aim is always to clock out a 4 pm and then get back to working on my book. It doesn’t always work out that way.

As for my book, I had about one hour to work on it, so I sketched a scene showing the dolphin character, who has magically turned into a little boy dolphin named Dylan, talking with Jimmy and Betty after pulling them out of the water.

Trying to Draw an Anthropomorphic Dolphin

Book three’s new character is a bottle nosed dolphin named Dolly. She’ll be Jimmy Jay’s companion in book four.

Dolphins are beautiful animals, and they’re hard to draw. The center dolphin looks right because it’s a tracing. The others are all mine. My goal is to create a cute young dolphin, but those I drew look matronly, and, with their skinny necks, like dinosaurs or ostriches.

Character Design for Children's Picture Book: A Sleeping Moai

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The story brainstorming continues. It’s spontaneous and unpredictable. My book started as a mental image of Jimmy Jay and Betty Burro stranded on Easter Island. How they got there I didn’t know. I did know that Betty is supposed to solve a mystery and save the day. Nowhere in my imagination was there a notion of what the mystery was. I would have to wait for it to bubble up out of my gray matter.

Not having a plot didn’t stop me from steadfastly forging ahead with concept sketches. Today another piece of the story fell into place — the moai are actually sleeping. Somehow Betty Burro with wake them from their centuries-long slumber and they can return to doing what moai normally do — that’s another thing that I have discovered yet. Whatever it is, it’s going to be an ah-ha moment!

A Pirate Cat Character for My Third Children's Picture Book

I’ve added a pirate cat to the story. He’ll be one of the residents of Easter Island. Yes, my Easter Island has pirates and talking birds and living moai. That’s the beauty of imaginary worlds — you can think of it, you’ve got it.

My pirate kitty was inspired by Howard Pyle’s illustration of a pirate on standing on the rolling deck of a his pirate ship.

Chore Day, Jan 2, 2021 -- The Year Changes, The Chores Remain The Same

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Jimmy meets Tupa

After doing the laundry and vacuuming, I returned to figuring out how I’m going to draw the moai character I introduced yesterday, when I drew a girl moai. Today, however, I decided the character will be a boy. Flip, flop! That’s just the way it goes when I’m brainstorming my stories. I start by visualizing a scene, adventure, or a place. When an idea grabs me, I may mull over the idea for weeks, or even months before I start writing and drawing. For this book, I first imagined that Jimmy and Betty Burro would find themselves washed up on the beach at Easter Island. My second thought was to introduce a whale character who will be a central character in fourth book in the series. Then, out of nowhere, it popped into my head that I needed a moai character. So now, Tupa will have an important role in the story.

There’s no logic or planning involved in all of this. Once the characters and setting take over in my imagination, the story takes on a life of its own.

Bring in the Eagles

Caracara Eagle Driving a taxi

In Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien brought in eagles to save the day only when all hope had been lost for mere mortals. I always makes me wonder, “Why didn’t J.R.R. bring in the eagles at the beginning of the fighting?” On second, thought, if the eagles had come into the story in Chapter One, he wouldn’t have needed to write Chapter Two. In my story I’m not waiting a moment too long — I’m bringing in the eagle in the middle of the book, when the kids need help getting out of a tight squeeze with a gang of churlish alligators.

Coincidentally, the national bird of México is the crested caracara eagle, a beautifully colored bird with intense tropical colors.

Day 86 -- More of the Same

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Today I completed yesterday’s drawing, and colored the picture of Jimmy Jay afraid that his pal Buddy Butterfly has gone one step too far.

In the meantime, I read “Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, and Philosophers” for the sixth time. It’s a great book, if you’re an artist, designer, poet, or philosopher. I’m qualified to read the book because I’m a little bit of each, sometimes.

The grid layout doesn’t work well with these images, and that may be a clue that they won’t look right when I lay them out in inDesign. That will be interesting! It’s looking like I’ll have to draw more of Momma Jay’s body and the rest of Buddy’s wings.

A Butterfly Takes the Blame

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Today’s image is a work in progress. I tried to put a little detail into Buddy Butterfly, with some veins in his wings and a little shading. Details eat up my time, especially when I don’t know what I’m doing when I’m learning how to operate a new program.

Enough chit chat. The dogs are waiting for me. They say I’ve got to take a shower and get ready for Second Family Hour.

I ran out of time… I’ll finish this tomorrow.

Sunday's are for taking naps

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It’s March 10 and I lost an hour of sleep. I hate daylight savings time. Just when my biological clock is feeling comfortable with 6:30 am sunrises, wham! We’re back in the dark. In protest I took a one-hour nap in the little patch of sun that comes through the living room window.

I’m getting a little faster with Sketchbook. I colored two images today and got started on a third. The built-in Copic color palettes save me a ton of time. There’s a nice drag-and-drop custom palette that makes it easy to collect the colors I’m using throughout the book. Nice work, Autodesk.

One other thing I’m noticing as I use my Wacom tablet is that it’s ergonomically more friendly than my Huion pen display. I can sit with good posture with the tablet. There’s no need to lean over the screen as I do with the Huion. That leaning with the raised arms kills my back. Another great feature a tablet has that a pen display does not have: your hand never blocks your view, which happens on the Cintiq and iPad Pro.