Category: books

Character design – Josh/Knut

Between now and the launch of The Last Viking Returns (Sept 1st, 2014), I’m going to do a series of posts showing my rough sketches for all the characters in the book.

I’m starting with the family characters. First up is our main man Josh.

 

Even though I’d illustrated a whole book with him before, it had been almost 3 years since I’d drawn him regularly. I wanted to feel more confident at drawing him consistently, so I sat down and worked out how to draw him again. These are my sketches and notes.

 

Josh-1 Josh-2I made a standard colour version of each character too, so that I could keep their colours consistent. Here’s the colour sheet for Josh:Josh-colour

Next up will be Wolverine, along with his new friend…

The Last Viking Returns in 2014

The Last Viking Returns is the sequel to The Last Viking (2011) and is once again illustrated by me and written by Norman Jorgensen. It’s being released in September 2014 by Fremantle Press!

Here’s a timelapse of me painting a page from The Last Viking Returns.

This page features Odin and his ravens, as well as Freya (the goddess of love and beauty), Sigurd (blacksmith to the gods), and Thor (no introduction needed).

All the illustrations in the book (including this one) were drawn with pencil, then scanned and coloured digitally using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet and Photoshop CS3/Corel Painter X3.

The footage was captured using Screenium. The colouring process took 4 hours in real time.

 

I wish I could paint this fast

Here’s a timelapse of me painting a page from The Last Viking Returns.

This page features Odin and his ravens, as well as Freya (the goddess of love and beauty), Sigurd (blacksmith to the gods), and Thor (no introduction needed).

All the illustrations in the book (including this one) were drawn with pencil, then scanned and coloured digitally using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet and Photoshop CS3/Corel Painter X3.

The footage was captured using Screenium. The colouring process took 4 hours in real time.

The Last Viking Returns is the sequel to The Last Viking (2011) and is once again illustrated by James Foley (me) and written by Norman Jorgensen. All being well, it’ll be released in October 2014 by Fremantle Press!

Sneak Peek

Hello readers! We’ve been away for a bit. But Norm and I have been working on something new. Hopefully I’ll have a cover image to reveal in the next month.

In the meantime, here’s a section from one of my colour roughs. It should give you a little idea of what’s to come.

TLV2-sneak-peek-1

 

Onward to glory,

James

‘In The Lion’ noted in 2013 CBCA Awards

CBCA Notable Book medalMy picture book ‘In The Lion‘ was named a Notable Book in the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Picture Book of the Year category. Thanks to all the judges, and congrats to all my colleagues who had books noted and shortlisted.

Viking longship-builders in Murwillumbah

These incredible longships were handcrafted by Year 4 viklings at St Joseph’s Primary School in Murwillumbah.

Their teacher Deborah Walker has put in a huge effort. Thanks for bringing the book to life and encouraging the next generation of marauders!

Thanks also to the school’s library coordinator Melissa Fraser for sending the photos.

Melissa tells us the school is busting to read the sequel to The Last Viking. We’re working as quick as we can Melissa- I’ll get on to the artwork in the middle of next year, fingers crossed.


viking ships from St Joseph's Primary in Murwillumbah

viking ships from St Josephs Primary, Murwillumbah

viking ships from St Josephs Primary, Murwillumbah

The kids’ votes are in – The Last Viking wins the 2012 Hoffman Award!

WAYRBA logo

The Last Viking has won the Hoffman Award in the 2012 West Australian Young Readers’ Awards.

The Hoffman is awarded to the highest-ranked book by a West Australian creator (in this case, 2 creators!).

It sure is an honour to have kids pick and then vote for their favourite book. Thanks to all the WA young readers who voted, we couldn’t be happier.

Make-your-own Viking god or goddess

One of the best parts of school visits is seeing the great ideas that schoolkids come up with. Here’s a bunch of viking god and goddesses, designed by students during children’s book week this year. God of Wind, by Tom Isabella the Goddess of Patterns, by Maddy Bothgolong, God of Fire, by Rohan A portrait of Thor that also folds up into a paper plane, by Christian This guy looks familiar… The God of Literature, by Catherine And finally, Optimus Prime, by Brayden. It’s not a viking god but it looks really cool.