Eric Orchard's Blog, page 31

Morning Doodle

Here's a little sketch Idid for Henry this morning on my Cintiq. Toronto is still pretty snowed in, although not as bad as New England, I think. I'm still finishing up that contract I mentioned last post, I should be all done today. 

All Snowed In

The snow drifts are pushing the door closed so I'm staying in today and working. I actually took a couple of days to get some writing done this week, giving my eyes a bit of a break and stretching some underused creative muscles. I had three illustration to complete before I can finish Maddy, and I have one left to do. I think it'll be done by early tomorrow.

It was a pretty crazy week, really. Only looking back I noticed it was nuts. First Julie got in a car accident. She's absolutely fine but the car was written off. Also, we lost our dog Benny for a full day. i was walking the streets for hours looking for him. I guess he found his way out of the yard. We were pretty surprised because he's a really old dog and can't walk well. Turns out he was at the pound.

Also, in other dog related news, I was driving Henry to school this week on my bike and heard a commotion by the Lake. Turns out a women's dog had gotten trapped under the ice on the Lake. We called 911 and the police, a fire engine and the media showed up. Followed by a marine rescue unit who happened to be training near by.

The dog turned out to be fine, he got out from the ice and climbed up a big stick the police held out for him. He was about 20 feet out on the Lake. It was pretty uncertain for a while. Henry was super late getting to school. 

A Break For Owls

I managed to wrap up a huge chunk of Maddy Kettle over the last few weeks by really pushing ahead with it. There is just 10 pages left to ink, so I'm almost there.

But, for the next few days I'm switching gears to work on a small contract for a wonderful new publisher in Australia called Tiny Owl Workshop, contributing some drawings to their first book (like the one above!) and I'll be completing some private commissions and doing some writing.

If you go Inkybook 1 you'll sort of know the story I'm writing as I had bits of it in Inkybook, I called it The Witch Detective there but am now calling it The witches of Bogg Lane and am doing it as a prose story. More on that later. 

King Of The Spider-Goblins

After several weeks working full tilt on Maddy Kettle I'm switching gears for a few days to complete some commissions and work on pitches a little bit for when Maddy is complete. Really wish I had finished the pitches months ago because it takes months for publishers to return your correspondence regarding pitches. There wasn't much I could do about it, though. I'm really looking forward to doing some illustration for a while. My portfolio is feeling very neglected.

Gaggle Of Goblins

                                      A gaggle of Spider Goblins on my drawing table today.

The Spider Goblin King

Here's an in progress panel from Maddy Kettle, the Spider Goblin King. I'm still trying to push through to the end and it's in sight. 

Pushing Through

So, last night I finished an illustration for an Australian publisher (a lot of fun by the way!) and today I'm back to working on Maddy Kettle. I'm going to try and push through right to the end of it. I'm very close and I think if I put my head down and just work on it with few distractions I can get all the inking done.

After Maddy is all finished and sent off for edits I have a ton of other projects to get to. 

Deep Freeze

It is really, very cold outside. It's supposed to stay like this for a few days so I'm hunkered down, working on a commission which I expect to be done a day or two and writing a little chapter book which I want to pitch as soon as I can. After Maddy is finished I'll be pitching books like mad, both for my own stories and for collaborations. 

Zipping Along

Just finished up a heap of writing work and a small contract from Australia just came in. Nice change of pace for sure! I'll probably be back to Maddy in about a week. As soon as Maddy is done I have to launch into four different pitches, all with writers. So, I'm zipping along.

In The Meantime....

There's been a real lack of posts lately! Sorry about that. I just noticed a pattern with me, when I'm working on something new I'm not ready to share yet my blog posts drop off and get really intermittent. I've taken a few days off from Maddy to do some writing and sketching and commissions. The writing is something I'll announce within the next month but for now I need to refine and work at it.

In the meantime, here's a sketchbook sketch of an Aerial Servant!