Category: Art

We live in a world where people use cafés as office space. I could never work in a café, it would be too distracting. I can barely work at home with the cat, nevermind the people-watching opportunities in a public place like Starbucks. Don’t these people have their own offices or homes? I suppose they’re filled with crying babies and substandard beverages. Not being a coffee drinker, I normally have no call to go into a Starbucks, but when Dan replied to my email responding to his Craigslist ad it was agreed that we’d meet at the Starbucks on Commercial Drive. I brought my sketchbook.

Anyone in a freelance capacity is probably used to meeting new people on neutral ground. My advice is to make sure you get a description of the other person, and provide one of yourself. This is something I try to remember to do, but I don’t always succeed. I seem to recall in this instance I forgot, but luckily when someone who is waiting for a stranger sees a stranger wandering around seemingly looking for another stranger, the task of identification is within his means. That was the case in the Starbucks in question.

Oops, I forgot a step. Before we met, we sent volleys of email with regards to artistic styles. Everyone knows that the ‘genre’ of kids books runs the gamut from stick people to high art. I wish I was in the same league with Shaun Tan (Red Tree, The Lost Thing, The Rabbits) or Tony DiTerlizzi but I’m probably closer artistically to H.A. Ray (Curious George) or Dr Seuss (on a very good day). My personal affinity towards kids book art is Maurice Sendak and Mercer Mayer, so that is the kind of thing I would be going for on this proposed book.

At the meeting, Dan brought some books to show me, and we discussed the range of styles and formats that would work if, in fact, we would be collaborating. We discussed the story, the characters, and I did some sketches of the main monster character on the spot, with just a smidgeon of direction from Dan. Basically, I would draw a few different concepts and he’d pick his favourite, Then I’d draw a few more incorporating his feedback, and so on. We certainly did not come to a fleshed-out, final design but it got us out of the gate. Around that same time I was practicing my character design with the help of Preston Blair’s Cartoon Animation book, which was helping me to break out of the realism rut I’d gotten into with illustrating Dungeons & Dragons books for nigh on a decade. That helped immensely to put the visual character into the characters written by Dan.

I think if I was a go-getting sleazy corporate shill with no ideas of my own I would just haunt coffee shops around big cities and wait to overhear the million-dollar ideas that float around unprotected. But I’m not a go-getter with no ideas. I’m a guy with lots of ideas who likes to sleep in.

Dan told me that he was ‘auditioning’ a few other artists so he’d get back to me. We parted, I went home, and worked on a few more sketches over the next few days, which I emailed periodically.

Next: Hell is Colour.

Illustrating a Children’s Book: A Production Diary By Toren Atkinson

So you want to know what it’s like to illustrate a kid’s book? Stay tuned for the lowdown from conception to consummation. In this online diary I’ll endeavour to provide you the maximum insight dosage, but you must understand that I am not in a position to release all of our deadly secrets since this is a work in progress and until the book is actually published, some things must remain on the “downlow.”

Note: if you just want to read the kid’s book posts and not the rest of my blog, which sometimes contains hilariously irreverent opinions on politics and religion as well as how much I hate commercials and love the Rio Theater, you can click on the “book diary” category link on the right and they’ll all come up.

How to Illustrate a Children’s Book, Step One: Learn how to draw. I’ve been drawing since I could hold a crayon, but one doesn’t need to do that. I mean look at Brandon Bird. I think I read somewhere that he only started around 2000 and he’s nothing to sneeze at. When I was 13 or so I did stupid cartoons for a local newspaper which somebody somewhere–probably me—has in a photo album. I started doing jobs for friends and acquaintances—illustrations of people’s houses-to-be and portraits and tattoo designs that I usually wasn’t too interested in doing. I’ve also got the chronic perfectionist artist guilt (CPAG – please give generously at home or the office), which means that I have no idea what to charge someone for a commission, so I usually undercharge, and if it’s not absolutely perfect I feel like I left the door open so that their prize shi tzu ran out into the street and got killed by an ice cream truck. Actually scratch that – I hate those ugly, yippy dogs and wouldn’t feel bad if that happened. Plus readily available ice cream makes for a convenient and delicious consolation. Suffice to say, I always feel self-conscious and awkward doing work for somebody else, and it makes a low-paying field even harder to get by in when I always undercut myself. On the topic of tattoos let me just say that even the coolest-looking designs are cheesy because tattoos are cheesy and I have a policy of refusing such requests (even though I did my brother’s).

In 1996 I started illustrating professionally in the roleplaying game industry. Thanks in large part to the fact that I was (and am) in an H.P. Lovecraft tribute band. I started doing illos in Call of Cthulhu books published by the fine folks at Pagan Publishing. That led to Dungeons & Dragons and various card, board games, and similar work. The boom was 2000-2004, in which I was able to quit my office job. The bust was around 2004 in which I had to get one back. Looking to diversify, I started prowling around video game companies and other options, but in addition to my CPAG I also suffer from Self Promotion Deficiency Syndrome. Couple that with the fact that I’m juggling art with music and acting (not to mention precious time-wasting) means I did most of my job-shopping online, behind the safety of my computer monitor. Enter Craigslist Vancouver.

I saw a want ad for an illustrator for a Children’s book. As part of my “back to the workaday doldrums” initiative of 2004, I got a job in a book warehouse. Not The Book Warehouse, just a book warehouse. Well, Raincoast Books, specifically—printer and distributor of the Harry Potter franchise in Canada. If you don’t hate Chapters going in, you will by the time you spend a few weeks pricing their books. I spent about a year there, three days a week, and in that time I saw a lot of kids books. Some of them were intimidating in their grandeur, while others were inspiring in their mediocrity. The fact that I just wanted to get the hell out of the warehouse was also a contributor to my aspirations of creating (or helping to create) a kid’s book. So when I saw that Craigslist ad, I didn’t blink.

End part 1.

I’m not 100% satisfied with these designs (ignore that I ran out of room on the paper for Animalgam’s right leg) but they give you an idea. Speaking of World Wildlife, I got this email yesterday (heavily edited for brevity):

We are actively recruiting volunteers for the Vancouver Triathlon, one of the three events (the other two were hosted in Edmonton and Calgary) for the first year in support of World Wildlife Fund of Canada (WWF).
Multisports Canada’s 5th Vancouver Triathlon in Ceperley Park (close to Second Beach, Stanley Park – downtown Vancouver). The triathlon will see the participation of over 500 athletes,
Monday, September 4th – LABOUR DAY
On the Volunteer Form, you will see a list of tasks and start/finish times… I know, I know, 5:30 am may sound a bit early [damn right – that’s 3 hours after I go to bed]! Body Marking, Registration, Set-up… all important activities that need your generous time and commitment to make it work There are other areas on the Swim, Bike and Run courses where you are needed to give directions, pass on some water to the thirsty athletes, and cheer as loud as you can! Also, you get to make new friends and support WWF in the magical set-up of Stanley Park!
fill out the volunteer form and fax it back to my attention at 604.678.5155. Should you require further information, again, feel free to email me directly (mdigiacomo@wwfcanada.org) or call me at 604.678.5152. Also, bring your friends and family and let’s join the fun!
… AND TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR MUCH NEEDED SUPPORT…
We have t-shirts, goodie bags and food as a little token of appreciation… 🙂
If you want to find out more, please visit: www.multisportscanada.com/Vancouver.html
P.S.: you can forward this to ANYONE else who may be interested. Thank you!
Mimmo Di Giacomo

My response was this:

This may sound a little weird, but is there anything going on besides the athletic stuff? I’d like to stop by and make a donation but I don’t want to do anything listed on the volunteer form.

The answer was an enthusiastic “absolutely, we’d be delighted if you stopped by!” so if anyone wants to go down to Stanley Park with me late in the morning on the 4th, I’m going to check it out, donate some cash to WWF, and maybe pick up a t-shirt or something if they’re not too hideous. And try to avoid competitive people who are ruining their knees.

Chocolate cake courtesy Michelle B!

Tonight I bore horrific witness to the teeming throngs of punks, drunks and skunks that attended the Symphony of Light or Celebration of Fire or whatever the hell it is that they call it, and indeed I was one of them (slightly punkish, slightly skunkish, and only drunk with rage).

The fireworks were pretty impressive – but nothing like the fireworks in my heart every moment of every day. It was like they took my 1997 screen saver and put it in the sky (and indeed it should happen every time that the sky is inactive for five minutes). The music was pretty awful but they did play Queen’s “Who Wants to Live Forever” which led to a quick critique of the Highlander movies that I’m sure annoyed everyone around us. But that’s okay because they annoyed us. How did they annoy us? Oh my heavens, let me count the ways. No, actually. I won’t because I’ve got to get some sleep tonight. Some of the fireworks looked exactly like a knot of sperm (or school of sperm if you prefer a more traditional incorrect collective noun terminology) which made me ponder how difficult and how cool it would be to try to adapt some PBS sex ed documentary into a fireworks display. I think it would definitely be worth a try. The grandeur! The majesty of gross things going on in my epedidimus written in gunpowder! It’d be poetic and educational, and come on, what better medium can you think of to describe a climax than fireworks? Although I guess if everything’s fireworks then the orgasm kind of loses it’s punch. Moving on….I also thought that the judges should give extra points if the smoke cloud from the fireworks looked like something cool by the end of the display — like a dragon or something. Even if it’s not a point system, throw a couple on there for good measure, like process cheese on a hot apple pie slice.

Afterwards, we (Lani, Selina and I) rode our bikes all the way to Oak & 17th whereat awaited the Gloucester Cafe which is a misnomer because it’s Chinese and it’s a restaurant. Astoundingly, we beat the others who were with us that drove cars (going from the Spanish Banks) although I think we pushed poor Selina too hard. I am going to have to go back to the Gloucester in a few months because they have double boiled essence of frog in some kind of sweet soup, but only available in winter. They also had cylon tea. I asked the surly waitress (I call her “Bright Eyes”) if it was served by a cylon, or if they just dipped a cylon into a vat of boiling water, or what, but she just shot daggers out of her eyes. As you can gather, it’s a pretty crazy joint!

Oh I almost forgot to tell you about my experience at Golden Age Collectibles. Normally I don’t support GAC because there are lots of other comic stores that are way more supportive of the gaming community in Vancouver, but I slipped in to see if they had any Jonny Quest or Dr Who comics. The guy was at the back doing something on a computer so I went back and said “I am looking for a couple of obscure comics…” and I gave a pause so that he could finish whatever he was doing and give me his full attention. He took the opportunity instead to reply rather curtly in typical sarcastic Comic Shop Guy mien, “…and do these comics have titles?” Holy lost customer, Batman! Who took your corn flakes out of the acid-free polybag and pissed in them? I politely ran off the titles and then politely left the shop, vowing to blog about my experience for all to politely read. And that brings us to this picture of a Yithian that I drew:

I discovered that flourescent orange ink on red paper makes a very interesting highlighting effect. Unfortunately it doesn’t translate well through the scan, since you can’t see the flourescence or the orangence, so you’ll just have to trust me. Would I lie to you about something so important?