The First 28 Pages of My Third Children's Adventure Picture Book

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I’ve been working on this book since January, 2021. My original goal was to complete the book by March. I assumed that I wouldn’t be working at an outside job. As luck would have it, I’ve been working full-time at doing contract work since February and I’ve been working only part-time on my book. At the moment I have an eight-week hiatus until my next five-month contract starts. I’m hoping to make a lot of progress during that break.

So far I’ve created 28 pages, some are finished and some are unfinished. One thing conspicuously missing from most of the images is dialog balloons. I’ll add those in eventually.

When I consider that I have three more books to write in the Jimmy Jay series, I get a queasy feeling — at the rate I’m going, it will take three more years to complete those books. My goal of making a living selling my work is looking more distant than ever. I’d like to think that some day I’ll have a six-book series that somehow goes viral, but I have to look beyond that goal and focus on the gift that I will surely give myself as I complete this series: the pleasure of learning how to draw and paint and tell a story.

Page 2 Revisted, with New Feet for Momma and Jimmy Jay

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Page two needed some fixing. Momma’s legs were never finished, Jimmy Jay was missing his feet, and the famous blue sofa wasn’t blue at all. For some reason I had applied a color correction layer that turned the sofa dark green. What was I thinking?

Every page needs work to repair errors of commission and omission. In a way, everything I’ve done over that last seven months amounts to a good first draft.

Besides working on page two, I opened InDesign and created a template that I can use for all of the books in the Adventures of Jimmy Jay series. Now it’s a matter of getting all of the images into InDesign and adding the text. Fortunately Clip Studio Paint can export all of the images as Photoshop PSB files.

More Revisions (Removing Tommy Toucan and Including Kid Jaguar)

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Today I updated all of the pictures that feature Tommy Toucan. Tommy Toucan is gone; Kid Jaguar is in.

I’ve finally got a grip on how to draw Kid Jaguar — his color palette, the logo on his t-shirt, how to draw his ears and nose and fat hands and feet. I’ll have to review my previous work to make sure that he has blue eyes, bare feet (pasws), and add the slogan “El Hijo” to his shirt.

Whenever I deviate from my original storyboard by adding a new detail, such as blue eyes, it means that I’ve created extra work for myself. When the extra work makes the book better, it’s great. When the bright idea (adding a Toucan to the story) doesn’t work, it’s just extra work. I can live with mistakes so long as they’re reversible. To protect myself from myself, I make backups for insurance against too many bright ideas.

Cover Image Revised...Again

Looking at yesterday’s sketch got me to thinking that there’s no way that Jimmy Jay’s going to jump down that chimney without injuring himself. He needs a better line of action, a nice line that makes him look like he’s diving rather than looking like he’s going to plow headfirst into a brick wall. So, I thought I’d better try again. Here’s my second attempt. I think the second attempt is telling me that I’d better make a third attempt.

Drawing a diver from imagination is harder than I imagined it would be. Perhaps some reference photos of divers would help.

Working on the Frontispiece

Yes, it’s been days that I’ve been reworking this picture. But, I made some progress today. I finally found a pose that’s more dynamic than my original it still needs more work. For example, the line weights are out of whack. Fortunately I’ll have about five weeks off to finish this book. My deadline for publishing is now August 31. That’s 2019, not 2020.

Here’s the rough image. There are some awkward line intersections that need fixing, and the line weight are totally screwy, but easily fixable…tomorrow.

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Buddy wants to be family, revised

Here’s yet another version of “Buddy wants to be part of the family.” In the previous version Momma Jay looked like she came from an alternate Jaybird universe. I liked her weird new look, but she didn’t look like the Momma Jay in the rest of the book. I’m going to look at these pictures tomorrow with fresh eyes.

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