All New Flavor!!

Months ago, I’ve come to a realization regarding the book I’m writing and the accompanying illustrations. I’d peruse my script with its serious and real-world affectations and look over pages, test pages, character designs, and color tests (which I didn’t want to do) and I came to a sobering realization – the art don’t match the story so much. Also, the method was too damn slow – I mean really slow. My images failed to get the message out and I felt I was suffering from petrified, static illustrations. I’d bury my head in the sand regarding the “truth” of how long the project would take to complete given my snail’s pace.

So I started to experiment. I’ve come to see that looser, less exacting line-work offered images that spoke activity to me. The freer renderings divorced me from the minutia of backgrounds and objects that was not the focus of a piece or panel anyway. I’ve learned that my writing and illustrations are born of quick emergent inspirations that slow deliberating art will never adequately capture. This was a significant discovery.

I poured over artists like Jason Shawn Alexander, Kody Chamberlain, Matthew Southworth, Brett Weldele, and the highly popular, Guy Davis. These guys showed me that loose illustrations could not only carry an amazing story – complete with all the subtleties, significance and settings you’d require, but they could be done considerably quicker. Also, if I need the assistance of a photo - so be it. I'm not trying to set the world ablaze as some big shot illustrator, but I am trying to arrange "images" that will tell you a story. Below are two pages of the same scene. The latter is my renewed style - much better. Much better flow, too.


It was not easy to accept that you don’t have to labor so on a piece. Think of what you have to say and how much you’re saying. I’m happy to say that my new, more forgiving style has given me a platform to move forward in my project. I’ve completed a huge body of pages for the book and am moving at a confident pace. I’m tons happier with my illustrations and ironically feel that they “look” more real that the prior arduous efforts.

This is fun.