Subscribers of my email newsletter The James Foley-O will know that I have a new book coming out in October. It’s about a pet rabbit that dies and comes back from the dead as a zombie; it’s called My Dead Bunny. It’s written by Sigi Cohen and published by Walker Books Australia. I’m busting to show you the cover! I’ll reveal more in the next couple of months. In the meantime, here’s some pictures of other zombie animals …
Category: artwork
Making a marionette
Late last year I was feeling overworked; firstly I was working too hard, but secondly I wasn’t doing anything creative just for myself. Then along came an opportunity to do something different … Spare Parts Puppet Theatre was running a 6 week marionette-making course.
Spare Parts is an incredible company that creates original puppetry productions; they’ve also adapted quite a few children’s books for the stage over the years. They’re based in my hometown of Fremantle, and I remember seeing some of their shows as a kid. I signed up for the course straight away.
How to make a picture book in a day
Narrogin Primary School kids are creative legends. Last August I got to hang out with 20 of them, making a picture book in a day.
Impossible! I hear you cry. What form of sorcery is this? It cannot be done! Well, we did do it, and here’s how.
Making a mural at the Perth Writers Festival
The Perth Writers Festival is over for another year. The weekend goes by so quick! I was very happy to be back this year as a presenter on the schools’ day and family day, and this year I also got to work on something a bit different – a massive mural.
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How to make a book for a Giant
This year’s Perth International Arts Festival will see a 6 metre-tall girl walking down St George’s Terrace. She’s called ‘the Little Girl Giant’, and as part of her visit she’ll receive an enormous book from the children of the City of Perth. I helped schoolkids produce some art for the book. More details on the Giants and the book below.
Evolution of a scene: the final version of ‘Big Trouble’
Last week I posted the roughs for this scene from The Last Viking Returns. This post will show how I got from my almost-final rough to my final illustration.
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Evolution of a scene: the rough sketches for ‘Big Trouble’
There’s a scene in The Last Viking Returns called ‘Big Trouble’ where Fafnir the dragon is finally revealed in all his terrible glory. The scene went through a lot of changes during development, so I thought I’d share them here.
It’s a lot of pics though so I’ll share them in two parts. This post will show you the roughs, and next week’s post will show how the final illustration was put together.
(And if you haven’t read the book yet, there’s a few SPOILERS below.)
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How I make comics
Late 2013 and all of 2014 was a hectic time for me work-wise, and I didn’t get to post as many pieces as I would have liked. So here’s a post on a great freelance job I had back in 2013-4; I got to make some comics. Here’s how I made them.
“My Place”: whimsical stories from Mount Hawthorn Primary students
This year, Mount Hawthorn Primary School invited myself and fellow author/illustrator Briony Stewart to collaborate on a 13-week residency project.
Our project was called ‘My Place’. The aim for each year four student (all 87 of them) was to complete a polished story and accompanying illustration based upon their favourite place in Mount Hawthorn. They also made the amazing map you see above!
Hit the link to see more work by the kids.
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Designing Viking World – the entrance gate
There’s only a fortnight until the release of The Last Viking Returns on Sept 1st! This is my last behind-the-scenes post before then.
I’ve been focusing on one of the main settings in the book – a theme park called Viking World. There’s a moment early in the book where the family arrives at the park for the first time, and I wanted Josh to have a sense of awe. The text only says “Wow”, so I was free to fill in the rest.
My first sketch looked like this. Not terribly impressive, not awe-inspiring at all, but it helped me to figure out what goes where.
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James Foley 