"Love" Painting

So, until the October Halloween monsters start going up on the blog, I thought that I would upload a couple other items. First here is a painting I did in 1996. It is small about 4X6 and done in acrylics. I used pencil to sketch it out first, then painted it.

New Stuff Coming Soon

So, in my spare time, I am working on several different projects. Much of which I will share on this blog. Here are a few details. I am working on a black and white comic book that will contain various stories using animals as the main characters in a anthropomorphic way. This is done in the style of Disney comics, Usagi Yojimbo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and my favorite comic book of the eighties, Critters. Critters actually contained stories from different artists/authors. While that could be possible at some point down the road, at first it will mainly contain stories drawn and written by me. My creative partner, Milton, and I have also talked about him writing for future issues, so hopefully that will come to pass too. It's something I have wanted to do since the mid-eighties and now with lulu.com it is actually possible.

Some of the projects are several children's books that are in various stages of development. Not sure which will be next though. I did order several copies of Jack the Pumpkin Head, one of my latest, for me to take to some area bookstores for Halloween and also to put in my father-in-law's store, Top Hat Magic and Costumes.

I love the Fall season, including the weather, holidays, football, fairs, etc.... So for the month of October, I will be doing a personal project. I will be uploading a new monster drawing every day in the month of October. Most, if not all, will be cartoony, but some may be grotesque and other's cute. I have actually already started on these, so that I am a little ahead during the month, if something comes up. Look forward to those.

New Book - The Weed

About two weeks ago, I came up with another idea for a book. This one seemed to fly out. It was short and in black & white. It's called, The Weed. It is up and ready to buy at Lulu. You can check it out at the following links below.

Paperback - http://www.lulu.com/content/4073311

Hardback - http://www.lulu.com/content/4087029

Of course, Jack the Pumpkin Head is also available for purchase and it can be found here:

Paperback - http://www.lulu.com/content/3990650

Both books are available as digital downloads if you want them now and in digital format.

And now, back to the drawing board.

Halloween Children's Book - Update Finished and Published

Whew! I just finished uploading the final files for my latest children's book, entitled "Jack the Pumpkin Head". It is available for purchase at the following address - http://www.lulu.com/content/3990650. If you have problems or questions about ordering, please feel free to email me at mcrosser@teamexpansion.org. I have had a great time working on this book and feel very satisfied that it is finished. There are some cool background notes. Throughout the book I put some "Easter Eggs". For those who don't know "Easter Eggs" are hidden things in a book, dvd, game, etc... On one page I put the street address of our first home, where I came up with the original idea for Jack the Pumpkin Head. Another street corner represents the home address that I grew up at. On a fence post there is a hidden dedication to Angie. Also, the character Andy has a couple of interesting notes. First of all he is wearing a ghost costume. It is similar but chosen because of my love for Charlie Brown's Peanuts comic strip. One of the best holiday videos in my opinion is "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". The second thing about Andy is that while you never see him in the book (due to the ghostly sheet) it isn't the last you'll see of him. He is actually the main character in another story I have been working on since 2002. That story takes place at Christmastime. I have had quite a creative burst of ideas lately, so more things are in the pipeline, but with Jack done, I'll take a little break. Not long, just a bit in order to relish in the completed project. This is a book I started in the Fall 1997, that's eleven years. It's nice to have it done.

Halloween Children's Book - Update Inked & Colored

Here is the opening page of my new story, Jack the Pumpkin Head. There won't be any words on the page, and I may or may not do some final touch ups on the page in Corel Photopaint.

Halloween Children's Book - Update Pencils

Here are some pencils for the halloween themed children's book that I am working on. The title of the book is "Jack the Pumpkin Head". All of the pencil work is done, next is inking, erasing, rescanning, importing into Corel, Digital-tracing, staging, coloring, shading, finalizing each scene, exporting the final jpegs, setting the type for the book and laying out the pictures, then exporting the pdf to upload to my publisher. Whew, I was planning on finishing it in my days off and spare time over the next few weeks, seems like a lot left to do. Anyway, check out the pencils below....

Halloween Children's Book

In the Fall of 1997, I carved a pumpkin while we were living in our very first home. As I walked by this pumpkin throughout the season, an idea began to germinate. I drew a pumpkin headed character with spindly and viny appendages. Leaves and twigs shot out from its elbows. Every year since, I would pull that old idea out and polish it. Every year, thinking a little more about who and what it was. What was its story? Who did it become? As the years went by the story got a little more defined in my head, adding a paragraph here and a single line there. Mostly, I draw, or said better I create. Create stories, drawings, characters, ideas, etc.... So many that will never see the light which live inside my brain. Finally after rolling around in my head for years, the idea came bubbling forth on October 11, 2007 in Ancona, Italy. We only had a few weeks left living in our apartment in Ancona. I was already feeling nostalgic about leaving it, and yet my creative juices were flowing. I had been exercising my creativity through many different outlets of work and personal life. I have taken Thursday's as a day off since 1995, at least. That Thursday, I felt the story coming out, so I sat down and wrote what had been captive in my head for ten years. It flowed generously. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I didn't always write straight through. In fact, more often I skipped from the middle of the story, to the end, then back to the beginning again. I wrote without stopping. Then I stopped typing. I had finished the first draft. I showed Angie and then made corrections. I read it again, then made corrections. I read it to the kids on the Ancona team and then made corrections. We returned to the states October 3oth, and I read it to our nieces and nephews, then made corrections. I sent it to my story/idea partner, Milton, then made corrections. I sat it aside for several months, then picked it back up a couple weeks ago. I went through and tightened the story some more, editing here and there. Then tonight I went through and planned out the pictures. I sketched through each of the pages of the story. It looks like it will have about 52 pictures in it. Fat Baby, the book that Milton and I did a couple years ago, had only 32 pictures. So this will have even more. I am excited to start drawing the pages and I hope to have it done within several weeks. I would love to put it in some area shops in time for the Halloween season. Who knows, I might sell one or two. I am just excited to get to this phase.

Video Creations

So, not everything I do is just drawing or graphics. Obviously, you can see the other posts that show I like to create with almost any medium. Here are four videos that I guided campers at Sunset Bible Camp to script and film last week. Then I edited, added sound then finished them for each night's gathering.

I Want To Be Likeable video one

I Want To Be Transformed video two

I Want To Be Made Bold video three

I Want To Be Made Wholehearted video four

The Empty Tomb

So, about a month ago, I was asked to help design and build a tomb for an actor portraying Jesus to emerge from on Easter Sunday at Cedar Ridge Christian Church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I was part of a creative team that did similar set design and building at East Tulsa Christian Church for years. It was great to be involved and I had fun working on it with some of the same people I used to create sets with. Here are some pictures of the process and the final shots, followed by a short video of the tomb in action.

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the post to see the video.

__________________________Video Below_________________________

The 17th Global Sketch Crawl

Well, this Saturday, I will be participating in the global sketch crawl. What is that you say? Well, you can find out more here (http://www.sketchcrawl.com/blog/?page_id=3), but basically it is a day every so often that is set aside to go around town and sketch! I think they plan one every two to three months. Maybe I'll go to the zoo, or maybe I'll go to the mall and sketch people. Not sure yet, but what I do know is that I'll be sketching what I see!