Page 40, Tuca Wearing a Gas Mask, is Finished

I decided that Tuca would wear the first gas mask I drew for him. The Nausicaa mask looks too much like the lungs of a small animal, which is not the thought I’d want to enter my readers’ minds. Now I’m off to work on page 41.

Speaking of pages, there are 75 pages in this, my third book. That’s about 30 pages more than are in the first two books in the series. My next work contract begins August 30, giving me about 35 days to complete the next 30-plus images, add the dialog, process everything in InDesign, and publish. No amount of can-do positive thinking can deceive me into believing that I can meet that schedule.

Whenever I find myself dealing with a tight deadline, I think of all the time I spend enjoying interesting challenges such as learning how to paint reflections on face mask lenses. And then I think of my impossible schedule and wonder if I should spend more time developing a simpler cartoon style. And, yes, I have been working on that project in my sketching time.

Final Image for the Kids Eating Giant Burritos

It’s time to move on to the next picture, which will show the kids heading off into the jungle. My deadline for completing this book is June 30, about eight weeks from now. I have about 30 pictures to paint, which means that, going forward, I have to paint a picture every two days. Yikes! To do that I’m going to simplify my paintings. The liklihood is that my simplified pictures won’t share the same style as the first pages I painted. I had this problem with my first book, with the style shifting multiple times before I completed the book.

I’ve settle on the digital brushes I’ll use for inking and painting. The inking brush is something like a Micron liner, with a little texture and not perfectly smooth. The two brushes I use for color are a Copic-like marker and a canvas-textured gouache-like brush. I’ve got to travel light. So be it.

Learning How to Paint Digitally - A Light Bulb

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I’m learning to paint digitally. This light bulb is my first effort. Learning new skills is tiring. After an hour of painting — attempting to paint — I was overcome with exhaustion. I fought off the desire to take a nap and ate some grapes and baked sweet potatoes. Tomorrow I’ll paint Buddy Butterfly under this light bulb as he explains his brilliant idea for getting over the monstrous border wall.

And, I’ve been putting off coming up with a new schedule…a schedule with realistic deadlines. I’ll sleep on it.

The Picture for the last page of my children's book

When I started this blog I made a commitment to posting something every day. I called it my “daily inch”, as in a daily inch of progress. I usually have about one hour, sometimes less, to work on my book. To give myself a push, when I started in December, 2018, I set the publishing deadline of March 31. I thought that I would be able to complete the entire 32-page book with 32 images in 120 days. But that didn’t work out. I’ve reset the publish date several times since. Today, June 26, 2019, I’m working without a deadline, which leaves me feeling like I’m drifting.

So, I’m setting a new publish date of September 1. I feel better already.

Here’s the last page of the book. I’ve widened it so that the image will provide a background for the text. This is a screenshot of the image in inDesign — the guidelines will be removed in the final version.