pisugtook 16-17 colour

Here's the last of the pisugtook colour spreads for the moment. Now I want to crack on with something else the same only different.

pisugtook 18-19 colour

I'm pleased with the little inuit/eskimo child and the igloo interior layout. I was ready for the novelty of drawing the mother bear to wear off (and it has) so to speed things up as best as I can I'm compiling an overall colour palette I can quickly eye dropper from as I go. On to the last colour spread for now.

pisugtook 22-23 colour

I really enjoyed working on this spread, although I couldn't use the turquoise I wanted for the water (I'm working with the all controlling gamut warning on in photoshop, CMYK all the way...). It will be a good exercise to work up some of these pisugtook spreads (or something in the same vain) in natural media when I have time. I work in digital mainly for speed and convenience at home, but I'd love to really push my painting skills into new areas. Onward with the next spread.

pisugtook 28-29 colour

The next colour spread for the polar bear tale. I'm quite surprised (pleasantly so) at how the palette for the arctic sunset has turned out on this one. I've been aiming for a feel of the great "What's Opera Doc" layouts by Maurice Noble. I wouldn't think to put this in the same league but those great stylised Looney Tunes animations have certainly been lurking in my brain since I was little. I think you come back to such (seemingly) simple artwork and look at it with fresh eyes and admiration as you work and work at being a better illustrator. I haven't created a colour treatment / model sheet for my characters so I'm honing and tweeking as I go along. As such I think the mother bear has developed slightly since the forest spread...I'll have to back track when I've finished all the spreads that I'm working up (my agent will need 4 or 5) and modify her somewhat.

pisugtook 12-13 colour

Here's the coloured up spread for pages 12 & 13. I'm pretty happy with the palette although it's going to be a never ending battle to keep the polar bear distinct from her background, despite my colour choices, but I suppose that's why polar bears are light coloured after all, to blend in. I think I'm going to have to show a bit more discipline over my photoshop brush sizes as they are starting to blur out in places (snow on trees) from being over large. It will be suitable for a christmas card if nothing else!

"pisugtook" storyboard pages 2-9

Well almost two weeks have passed, but I have been working on something new...yup the second draft of the story is on the back burner like the first. No one said that writing is easy! My US agents were again constructive and diplomatic in their comments. As always I'm not deterred. I can see that my time at present can be more constructively employed, and as for the story, well that is going to be an ongoing personal project when time allows.

So what have I been doing...? Well I've been told that my alphabet animals are seen as having potential. With that in mind my agent has asked me to concentrate on working up this animal theme into a series of sequential artwork showing I can handle a character through a story. I couldn't help myself once I got started. I want to practice the discipline of working within the 32 page children's picture book framework so... a few sequential spreads turned into a 32 page picture book! Furthermore I really need to be telling stories with human characters so I wove some inuit (or is eskimo a PC term as Stephen Fry said on QI...?) into the narrative. Is that inuit or inuit's...? I wonder is there a collective term for a group of inuit/s or eskimo/s ...a frost of... a blizzard of...? Anyway I digress...

Here is the storyboard for the animal tale...nothing to complex storywise, this is very much for younger readers, arround 3-4yrs. A mother polar bear goes in search of her missing cub. Along the way she finds various other youngsters safe with their mothers. Just when the whole thing starts to get on top of her we find out the cub wasn't missing, but had been along for the ride, sleeping in the warmth of her fur coat all along!

I learnt a new word while reading up on polar bears; "pisugtook" which, according to a photography book I have, is "great wanderer" in the inuit language. I googled pisugtook and the only hits I got were this photography book (in fact it was almost a googlewack...google that word if you don't know what I mean...?!) and a character name from a French children's book called "Samik and the Polar Bear". I don't know if pisugtook is the correct word but I like the sound of it, so for now the working title of the story is "pisugtook".

PS. if anyone is wondering where page 1 is, that's going to be a half title page opposite the inside front cover.

PPS. does anyone else find blogger really buggy when used on a Mac...16 images to attach (and attached over again!!!) takes seemingly forever...phew done!

"pisugtook" storyboard pages 10-17

"pisugtook" storyboard pages 18-25

"pisugtook" story board pages 26-32