IF: Magic Carpet Moon Ride!

I was asked to do the August cover for Stories For Children. After looking through the various stories this month, I thought that a magic carpet ride would be really fun to do. It was! I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

To give you an idea of how I work, I've included some sketches below. I first make a number of character sketches until I find some I like (I haven't included the roughest sketches) then trace what I want on my lightbox (see first sketch above). Next, I scan these images into Adobe Illustrator where I tweak them a bit (mostly, I scale them to the size I want) and arrange them in a way I think will work (I haven't included this step above). After printing that, I work the background around the images (see second image) and scan that into Illustrator once again. Last of all, I print it off onto watercolor paper, ink it in, and paint! Sometimes I add an additional step of printing the finished sketch onto scratch paper and coloring it with crayons to get the colors just right before I paint it. Last night I decided to just risk it, and it worked! I hope you like the finished product.

To give you a little update, I just sent off my second batch of postcards (I used my homepage image from my website. I hope it will yield additional results. My last mailing has given me opportunity to get experience with Stories For Children and Fandangle Magazines. I haven't been paid, but it's given me a taste of what it's like to be an illustrator. I have actually received my first paid assignment last week (I haven't yet completed it, however) to do a logo for a writer's group. Hopefully, my continuing efforts will bring additional (paying) opportunities. But if not, I'm still having fun!