I’ve got some Perth-based school holiday workshops, and the Perth book launch of Dungzilla!
Plus, some fantastic events in Queensland in early September, including the My Dead Bunny musical.
Continue reading “Events for Sept-Oct 2017, including the Dungzilla book launch”
My latest book, Brobot, was released in 2016. It’s a graphic novel for younger readers. I first started working on it in 2012. Over those four years I drew many different versions of the main characters – Sally, Joe and Brobot – and I’ll be sharing some of those over the next few months on this blog.
ABOVE: One of the earliest sketches of Sally Tinker. From 2012. This is from the very first draft picture book (well before we realised it needed to be a comic). She’s very cute here, and is in much the same style as Josh from The Last Viking. She has a tiny hint of the attitude she shows in the final book.
ABOVE: Another early sketch of Sally, from 2013, back when I was still trying to figure out her hairstyle and costume. Note that here she still has dots for eyes like Josh did in The Last Viking, rather than the cartoony circular eyes she has in the final book.
ABOVE: Another version of Sally, from 2015. Closer to her final version but not quite there. She now has circles for eyes, and her grumpy demeanour. The oversized rubber gloves didn’t make it to the final version.
ABOVE: Maquettes are super helpful when you want to figure out how a character looks in 3D. I was having particular trouble with Sally’s hairstyle and profile, and a maquette helped me figure that out. This is from January 2016, just as I started the final artwork.
ABOVE: The final version of Sally Tinker, Feb 2016. When you draw the character from different angles like this, it’s called a ‘turnaround’. It’s a reference you keep by your desk when you illustrate a story so that you can keep your character consistent (ie this is also called keeping your character “on model”). I drew this after I had completed the final illustrations for the book. Pro tip: you should really make your turnaround sheets BEFORE you do the final illustrations, not after 😉
Buy ‘Brobot’ nowHello! 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’ now
It’s finally here! My new book Brobot is now available in bookshops.
Brobot is about a young inventor called Sally Tinker. She gets sick of her baby brother Joe, so she builds a new one, called Brobot.
Here’s some more info on the characters …
And here, for your viewing pleasure, is the Brobot book trailer! I had heaps of fun playing with a program called Adobe Character Animator to bring Sally to life.
Buy ‘Brobot’ now
It’s almost here!
My new book is called Brobot. It’s a graphic novel for younger readers and it’s coming out with Fremantle Press on September 1st.
Sally Tinker makes machines … and Joe Tinker breaks them. As the world’s foremost inventor under the age of twelve, Sally knows she can build a better brother than Joe. But is her invention – Brobot – really all that a brother should be?
Want a cheeky sneak-peek? Click here to read the first 16 pages for free.
Want to use the book in the classroom? Teacher notes are available now.
Want to order a copy? Ask at your local bookshop. If you don’t have one near you, Booktopia is taking pre-orders.
Fremantle Press is offering five lucky schools the chance to win two special Brobot gift packs: one for the classroom and one for the person who designs the best robot. Each gift pack features a poster and bookmark plus a signed copy of Brobot the book!
Want to enter? Visit the Fremantle Press website for entry information.
Entries close October 15th, 2016. Good luck!
Children’s Book Week is coming up fast: this year it’s August 22nd – 26th.
My latest book My Dead Bunny is shortlisted in the 2016 Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards, in the Picture Book of the Year category.
A lot of older students will balk at the mention of picture books because those are just for babies.
But this book is different.
While it is technically a picture book, it’s definitely not a bedtime story for little ones – it’s for older readers, 8-ish and up (teenagers and adults especially seem to love this one.)
Older kids take one look at this book and know it’s not for babies, so they don’t feel like they’re being talked down to. It’s a great book for looking at rhyming texts, visual narrative/visual literacy and generic conventions. Plus it has zombies in it. Kids love zombies.
In preparation for Children’s Book Week, Walker Books and I have put together some free teacher notes for My Dead Bunny.The notes include heaps of discussion points and activity ideas, with links to relevant behind-the-scenes posts from my blog. It should all make studying the book in class super easy.
Download ‘My Dead Bunny’ Teacher Notes (pdf)
My blog has heaps of posts about the making of the book; each post is tagged with ‘My Dead Bunny’.
View Behind-the-Scenes blog posts
Shannon at OhCreativeDay.com has put together this brilliant tutorial on how to create your own zombie rabbit softie.
Here’s some fun activities for early finishers – two word searches and two colouring-in sheets. Feel free to download these for use in your classroom.
– My Dead Bunny word search –
Download word search (pdf)
Download solution (pdf)
– Zombie vocab word search –
Download word search (pdf)
Download solution (pdf)
– Mindlessness colouring sheet #1 –
Download now (pdf)
– Mindlessness colouring sheet #2 –
Download now (pdf)
If you choose to use the book in class, I’d love to hear about how you use it! Please leave a comment below, or send me photos of displays/student work via james(AT)jamesfoley.com.au [replace the (AT) with an @].
Buy ‘My Dead Bunny’ nowBooktopia (Australia)
Readings (Australia)
Angus & Robertson (Australia)
Book Depository (UK)
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.
