Rob Peters's Blog, page 194

One Word

I was recently inspired to find one word to define and inspire this new year. After giving it much thought and prayer, I’ve decided on (drum roll, please)…

I’m not entirely sure what all that means for me yet.  Exploring new opportunities, new places to showcase my work, new works to create. But I’ll try to keep the ol’ blog updated and let you know what I’m exploring.

Here’s to a fun year!

Happy New Year!

2013 was an incredibly busy and productive year for me. Here’s to a great 2014!

Trick or Treat!

 

When I began work on the Halloween book Night of the Candy Creepers, one of the first things I did was draw a bunch of costumes for the main character to wear as he went trick-or-treating through the neighborhood. I showed my best ideas to the author, Donna Davies, and she chose the vampire costume for the book. Which was the right idea for a spooky book, but I would have love to draw the cowboy or pirate costume for a story. Maybe someday…

 

The Boogeyman!

 I wrote about my 3rd book with Donna Davies the other day, and I can’t let October passat least mentioning my 4th book written by her: Bye, Bye Boogeyman

For this book, I needed a Boogeyman who could be both scary and fearfull. I read through the story a few times and paid careful attention to the physical descriptions of the Boogeyman. Then I drew up these possible scary monsters (Click on the images to enlarge them)

 

And then did these scared variations

I showed the monsters to Donna, who picked Boogeyman #2 to star in the new book. I really like #2 (especially after drawing him through the entire book) but part of me wonders what the book would have been like with #3.

I’ll post more about the creation process of this book later this week. But until then, if you want to see more of the Boogeyman, check out the book on Amazon.

 

Inspiration for Night of the Candy Creepers

Night of the Candy Creepers is the 3rd book I’ve had the pleasure of illustrating for author Donna Davies. I’ve been wanting to write about this book for months (I began work on it last January) but I’ve been waiting for Halloween to come around. For the first half of the story, a kid walks through his neighborhood trick-or-treating while being followed by the mysterious “Candy Creepers.”

I decided that to make the monsters seem even more out of place and spooky, I would have to make the neighborhood as realistic as possible. Thankfully, I just happened to live in a realistic neighborhood.  So I grabbed by camera and went for a walk. I took a bunch of great photos and used them as inspiration and references throughout the book.

Here are a couple of photos I took of the neighborhood and the illustrations that I used pieces of those photos in.

If you would like to see more of the finished illustrations, check out the book on Amazon:

Or get the super-cool animated version for iBooks: click here! And it’s currently on sale!

Interview with me and Donna Davies

Want to read an interview with me and author Donna Davies? Well, now you can.

We discuss our Halloween books and other fun stuff. You’ll like it.

http://kitereaders.com/2013/09/25/meet-our-halloween-duo-donna-davies-rob-peters/

FREE Comic!

 

I’m thrilled to announce that Crazy Cal Gets A Job– the exciting and yet funny story featuring Crazy Cal, EVIL coffee, spies, and all kinds of cool stuff is available for the Kindle. And, for this week only, it’s FREE! The offer begins Tuesday, August 20 and ends Saturday, August 24 so you’d better act fast. You’ll be glad you did.

Might solve a mystery, or rewrite history…

Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and other characters copyright Disney.

As I’ve mentioned once or twice before on this blog, a few years ago I was approached with the possibility of drawing Disney’s ducks for comic books. I grew up watching Disney’s Ducktales on TV and reading all the comics I could get my hands on. But I had never tried to seriously draw them until then. And I wasn’t too bad at it. But before I could get my first assignment, the editor I was talking with lost his job and the whole Disney comics line closed down.  Such things happen sometime. (Don’t worry, I landed the Kansas Jayhawk ABC book weeks later, and that worked out pretty well for me.)

But I developed the love of drawing Donald, Uncle Scrooge, and the whole gang of ducks.  So I occasionally start my day with couple sketches of Donald to warm up the ol’ drawing hand before working on my own stuff. And so I decided to put all that practice to good use and draw the Disney ducks in a more finished illustration.

And I think it turned out OK. What do you think?

Shopping

I’ve updated my shopping page to reflect all my published work that is currently available. Check it out! Click the “shopping” link at the top of the page (or just click here.)

Has Anyone Ever Seen This Bear?

This is Peanut Bear, who was comissioned by one of my first clients after I went into full-time freelance illustration. He was intended to be the mascot for a children’s toy and sporting goods website. Has anyone ever seen it before? I make it a point never to share my work online  until the client has used it. But after four or five years, I figure I’m safe.

The project went through many differnt sketches before I landed on the one they were happy with. Here are a few of my favorites. (Please note that these are only a portion of the 14 sketches I showed the client, and that doesn’t include the myriad of sketches I discarded and never showed anyone).   

From all the different bears drawn and the sports presented, it’s clear that the client wasn’t quite sure what they were looking for when the process began. And I hadn’t yet learned the skill to read between the lines and determine what the client really expects. I imagine that if the process was done all over again today, I wouldn’t need quite so many sketches. And if you want to test that theory, feel free to hire me to design a mascot for your website or business.

And please let me know if you see old Peanut anywhere online. I’d love to know what happened to the guy.