Hello! I’ve pulled together some gifs to show you how I made some of the illustrations in Brobot. You can see how I got from the first rough drawing to the final artwork for each illustration. Check them out below.
(NB: if you’re receiving this post by email and the gifs don’t appear, just click on the post title above to view the original post on my website).
Buy ‘Brobot’ nowToday I’m going to show you how I used photographic textures in the illustrations of My Dead Bunny.
Photographic textures are great for whenever you need a realistic-looking texture, or when it’s going to be too hard ot time-consuming to draw a texture by hand.
I’ve used photographic textures in all my books so far, but only sparingly. The creepy, cinematic style of Dead Bunny called for the use of lots and lots of textures, and it was heaps of fun to let loose.
Here’s a little excerpt from the title page illustration. It uses the three three texture samples you see below it.
Continue reading “How I use texture in illustrations (plus 4 free texture sites)”
My Dead Bunny is my latest book. It’s a tongue-in-cheek picture book about a zombie pet rabbit. My illustrations took a lot of inspiration from movies.
I’ve already written about how one scene was almost an homage to The Shining, how the family home was inspired by a farmhouse from The Walking Dead and how a lot of the images use camera angles and clichés from film.
Today I’m writing about why the illustrations use a black and white (plus green) colour scheme.
My Dead Bunny is my latest book. It’s a tongue-in-cheek picture book about a zombie pet rabbit. My illustrations took a lot of inspiration from movies.
I’ve already written about how one scene was almost an homage to The Shining, and how the family home was inspired by a farmhouse from The Walking Dead.
Today I’m writing about how some illustrations were inspired by clichés and camera angles used in film.
My Dead Bunny is my latest book. It’s a tongue-in-cheek picture book about a zombie pet rabbit. My illustrations took a lot of inspiration from scary movies.
The book features a spooky house. If it looks familiar, that’s because it is – most American films about ghosts and ghouls take place in a house that looks pretty much like this. But which house is it inspired by?
Continue reading “Which spooky house influenced My Dead Bunny?”
One of my favourite parts of illustrating a book is helping to design the cover – you get to sum up the whole story in one image.
Here’s how the cover for My Dead Bunny came about.
Last week I finished my new book.
The book is called ‘Brobot’ and will be released by Fremantle Press on Sept 1st, 2016.
Click through for more info …
I love seeing early sketches for a project. You can see how much work goes into a project before the final images are created, and it’s fun to spot glimpses of the final characters showing through in those first designs. I also like to imagine how different a story might have looked if the creators went with different designs to start with. It’s as if you’re seeing the story as it appears in a parallel universe.
Here are some early sketches for My Dead Bunny. Some spoilers below.
Late last year I was asked by the City of Wanneroo to work on a mural project with primary school students.
Our task: to make murals for the Banksia Grove Community Centre, based on the theme of ‘what makes me happy’?
Here’s what we did.
My Dead Bunny includes a scene in a hotel lobby. It seemed like a natural opportunity to reference the classic horror film The Shining. My idea was rejected.
Continue reading “How ‘The Shining’ influenced ‘My Dead Bunny’”
James Foley 