Eric Orchard's Blog, page 59

What I'm Reading

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Saturday Review

I kept Henry home from daycare yesterday because he hadn't been feeling great earlier in the week. He ended up being my assistant in my crazy schemes for that day. We listened to a lot of Tom Waits and built machines out of household appliances and stuff we found in the neighbor's shed. It's getting cold here! Did it get cold this fast last year? I would not be surprised if it was snowing when I wake up tomorrow morning.

I have about a weeks worth of drawing and revisions before I can get back to Maddy. Today will mostly be spent on the Cintiq revising a book cover. And right after I need to do revisions for the Tor.com webcomic.

I've started settling on the storyline for the second Maddy Kettle book today. At least in my head, nothing really committed to paper yet. Or nothing that makes sense to sane, rational human beings. I can say it will involve a fleet of rat pirates in the clouds.

Henry is jumping on my back as I type this yelling "Daddy!! Daddy!! I'm in your chair!!" so I think I'll sign off. I need to get my day started properly. His grandmother is coming by to take him away for a while. No, that wasn't a sigh of relief you just heard. 

Vampire Bats!

A scene in pencils from Maddy Kettle. I think there's about eighty bats here. It should take forever to ink but it'll be worth it. I've been looking forward to drawing this scene.

Working on a book cover today, I have about a week of non Maddy related work ahead of me. Which is fine, I like to be able to switch between projects. 

A Dangling Raccoon

I woke up this morning and my left eye was a little bit better. Every day I'm seeing some improvement. Which is a huge relief. I can now read with my left eye, which I couldn't a few days ago. I'm still going to take it easy today, though, so I don't over extend myself.

Above are some pencils from Maddy Kettle. Silvio making an escape from a downed hot air balloon. In the comments for yesterday's post Gabe Gill said that Harry reminded him of an American Totoro. Which is amazing that anyone gets that! I've thought that way about Harry and Silvio all along but never really expressed it. They are sort of like animal spirits, but in a very North American vein. Something else that just occurred to me is how influenced the story is by G K Chesterton, in the way the mystery unfolds and nothing is what it quite seems to the hero. I didn't realize what an impact his work had on me until I stood back and had a good look at the shape of the story. I love these surprises. 

Don't Let The Bear Drive The Balloon!

Well, after a very long sleep last night my eye is a bit better but still not perfect. There's not much I can do about it right now, but I think I'll take it easy today. I just got a list of revisions back on a book cover so I need to get to that as soon as possible. I have an appointment with the ophthalmologist tomorrow.

Above are some pencils for a Maddy Kettle page. There's quite a bit of story that happens before you meet Harry and Silvio but I'm finally there and am loving drawing them again. It's actually been a while since I drew them in a comic! My initial strategy was to pencil five pages and then ink them but I find I'm losing the thread that way, so I'm penciling twenty pages and then inking them. So far it seems to be working really well. It also is giving me a greater sense of progress and that kind of thing can be really important. 

Alphabeasts B is for Barguest

"A kind of bogy or bogey beast.....regarded as a death portent....At the death of any notable person it would appear, howling and baying....It haunts a piece of wasteland between Wreghorn and Headingly Hill near Leeds"

More Alphabeasts here.

A Comic For Everyone!

                                                   Polo And The Magic Flute By Regis Faller


Polo is a series of silent comics by Regis Faller, a magical and warm series of adventures of Polo, a curious and adventurous dog. The world of Polo is calm and reassuring. There is also something philosophical about Polo, there is a depth to the ideas that are explored. But this never makes Polo hard to relate to, it is a world one can visit and feel very much at home. These adventures are familiar, they are much like the journeys we all take in our imaginations. 
In Polo And The Magic Flute, Polo sets off across the ocean in a little boat where he finds himself in a Japanese type land where a friendly monk gives him a magic flute. The story is surprisingly rich for a wordless comic and holds up to repeated readings. 
The art is some of the most charming in comics, both masterful and a little informal. The colouring more or less flat and very attractive. 
On amazon. 

What I'm Reading

After finishing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer I ended up reading The Wizard of Oz, both The Great American Novel and both books I wasn't sure I'd read all the way through before or if I was just familiar with them from other sources. With Oz I realized I really hadn't read the original all the way through, there are a number of amazing sequences I was not at all familier with. so glad I read this. I'm planning on reading the whole Baum series now. I've read the odd Oz book here and there but I have the complete series of books on my Kindle so it'll be easy to keep track of where I am. 

My Saturday Post

Henry playing with a new remote control robot, which I might be playing with more than him. There's not a lot to say about this week that I haven't already said, about my eye or Henry's birthday. a surprisingly satisfying week considering I woke up blind in one eye. I'm just about to finish off another lot of Maddy Kettle pencils. That's all going really well. Finally finished The Adventures of Tom Sawyer yesterday, which is brilliant, of course. I also finished the first Wizard of Oz book, which I love and will talk about tomorrow. This weekend I think I'll get a bit further in the 10 or so books I've been reading on and off over the past year. Some Hemingway, some poetry books, a Joan Aiken book. I'll likely have to take a big break for hunting and gathering today, I mean groceries. That's dangerous for me, wherever I go I seem to find a book to buy.

Maddy And Ralph

[image error] A photo from a Maddy page, which I'm working on despite the bad eye. I actually seem to have not missed a beat. My vision is a lot better and I can't stand doing nothing all day, which is a big surprise to me. I thought I'd love nothing all day. I've been reading a lot as well, making the text on my Kindle HUGE. I just finished The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and now I'm back reading the Oz books. Both free editions. I tend to treat my Kindle a bit like a library and not so much as a bookstore. I want to own print editions of my favorite books but it's a great way to read old books for free or see if I like something.

On a more, um, political note.... you might want to check out the Anti-Spec campaign, especially if you work in a creative field. It hi-lights the increasing problem of big companies crowd-sourcing work instead of hiring someone to do it. This means that a company will get hundreds of hours of free work and that the fees designers and illustrators charge will inevitably have to be reduced even more. 
Here's a great collection of free children's books on Project Gutenberg.