Friday, July 29, 2011

Decisions Decisions Decisions!

I need to decide between the 3 images below for the book cover for Mr. Pitt & Lickety's Split...

First Image: The two characters have very prominent teeth and tongue features
 
Second Image has less prominent teeth and tongue features
Last image has no teeth and tongue features
 I am leaning toward the image with "no teeth and tongue" features. Of course my son likes the first image with the prominent features, LOL! Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

My Son ~ The Illustrator!!

My children and I have a quasi-game we play with each other...we will take turns and scribble on a piece of paper, with your eyes closed for just a few seconds. Once the "scribbler" opens their eyes, we all take turns at trying to make pictures out of the scribble that was done.

I introduced my children to this as I had made this game up with myself when I was young...I use to play this when I was bored to death while sitting in church as a child. It is similar to the game you play when you are riding in an airplane and you try to find/spot as many objects or faces as you can in the clouds.

Well one particular time we were playing the "scribble game" as I will call it, and my son drew two cartoon-like characters. They were so cute! And from the original scribble drawing, he decided to create another drawing of the same characters, only it showed them in a front view position. Normally we just throw away our scribble "masterpieces," but this particular time, I had decided to keep his drawings. I am glad I did!

It wasn't until almost a year later...and after hiring an illustrator for my books...that I thought of the idea of using my son's drawings for one of the books! His drawings of the two characters were actually PERFECT for my book Mr. Pitt & Lickety's Split.

I had seen on Jeff's website (Jeff the illustrator) that he also does "re-illustrations" of pictures you submit to him. How perfect!!!!!!! My SON will be the ILLUSTRATOR, and Jeff is the RE-Illustrator of this particular book.

When I told my son that he would be illustrating one of the books, he was so excited! Of course, he would be ;-)  He's just 13 years old, he was 12 when he created the drawings. And as his mother, I am so proud of him, and just sooooo excited!!! Who would ever have thought that a game I made up as a child would be the catalyst to a book cover illustration created by my child.

Well Jeff the illustrator sent me the re-illustration today (just a rough sketch) of my son's illustrations. I just laughed, the characters are so funny looking...just like I like it!! Can't wait for my son to see them...my son is currently away at a summer scholar program at Princeton University!!

Below are the pics of my son's original "scribble" drawing, then the drawing he created as a result of the scribble drawing, and thereafter the re-illustration sketch from Jeff. I will also post the progress of the re-illustration just as soon as Jeff completes it for the book.

God Bless!

MY SON'S ORIGINAL "SCRIBBLE" DRAWING FROM THE GAME WE PLAYED. If you were wondering why you can't see the scribble lines, once I had decided to keep the drawing I erased the lines (it was done in pencil) AND made a zerox copy of the original:



SECOND DRAWING CREATED BY MY SON AS A RESULT OF THE ORIGINAL:


THE ILLUSTRATOR'S RE-ILLUSTRATION OF MY SON'S DRAWINGS FOR THE BOOK:


FINAL COVER WITH UPDATED CHANGES TO THE IMAGE: