Jason Sandberg's Blog: Kingdom Comeuppance, page 2

Where was I in July???

July came and went without a blog post from me. But I was VERY BUSY...

Why was I AWOL in June?

Yeah, no blog post in June. But I had a good reason!

What I was doing in MAY

If I still wasn't blogging in May, what was I doing?

Here's the answer...

Very late April Blog Post

I've been a bad blogger in 2016, but I had a good excuse. Here's what I was doing in April...

What if this were March?

My Dell computer finally died in March after an epic 8.5 years of daily use. There were no tears; I diligently back-up my files, and I know I got my money's worth. Anyway, I was unable to post to Goodreads during the transition to my new iMac. If you ask "What if this were March?" I'd say "I would share the next drawing in the ATHENA book I'm working on..."

Auditioning dinosaurs

This past Christmas the big gifts for our kids were iPads. I've enjoyed looking over their shoulders as they've explored new apps. A huge hit at our house has been the "Lego Movie Maker." The kids have made some cute and hilarious stop-motion films. A favorite of mine depicted a police car chasing a jewel thief in a getaway van... around and around in a circle. My friends and I would've loved this software back in the 1980s, our DIY animation consisted of drawing flip-books. The kids have had such fun that it was a logical leap for my daughter to create a book trailer for Candy and the Cankersaur using the "Lego Movie Maker" app!

Step one was to cast Candy. We gave Lego's Mia character a makeover by cutting her hair, giving her a blue ribbon and adding some yellow paint.

Step two was to cast her co-star. Looking through the toy box, we found several candidates. Is was time to audition dinosaurs...

Zeppo was photogenic, but maybe too short. No one will be impressed by a dinosaur in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.

Harpo looked good next to Candy, but kept forgetting his lines and missing his cues. He kept trying to chew the scenery (and I mean literally chew the scenery).

Chico was adorable, but during the interview he seemed to be preoccupied with his singing career. We needed a dinosaur who would commit to the role.

Groucho stomped in with the script memorized. And his bad boy charm might add additional humor to the book trailer.

Who did we cast? Which dinosaur will be featured in my daughter's forthcoming book trailer? You'll need to wait until March 1st when we debut her book trailer for Candy and the Cankersaur

Digital Lasagna

Anyone familiar with PhotoShop understands the ability to create layers in an image file, each of which can have a different opacity/transparency. New colors and textures can be created by stacking translucent layers of color upon each other. This month I'm sharing various layers of a single page from The Wondrous Kite. Enjoy this slice of Digital Lasagna!

I hope you enjoyed seeing how these layers become a composite image! If you'd like to see the rest of The Wondrous Kite you should check it out this weekend, it will be FREE on Amazon through February 2nd!

The Wondrous Kite

Following a poetry module in school, my daughter compiled a collection of original poems. When she showed me her book I was impressed, between each cute poem she'd created an ongoing interstitial narrative.

I decided that adapting "The Wondrous Kite" would be a unique project. Although flying is a universal aspiration, it's rare that non-animals are the subject of personification in Children's literature. Additionally, Julia successfully captured a carefree tone in a mere eight lines.

Short projects are always an opportunity to experiment because if you fail you fail small. I'll discuss how I built the artwork in a future blog post, but throughout the process Julia gave her input. She had final say on the color scheme for the kite!

You can find the result of my first eBook collaboration with my daughter by clicking here!

Athena Page 1

One of my current projects is a picture book about Athena. I'm doing the illustrations in pen and ink, which has provided a welcome escape from the computer screen. Here is a preview of Page 1.

Una Corona Nueva

In October, KDP-Espanol, the Spanish language division of Amazon, is running a promotion celebrating self-published titles. They've chosen to feature "Una Corona Nueva" as one of the titles in the month-long campaign. October should be an interesting month...