October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 26 - Jack Painting

Day 26 - Jack the Pumpkin Head painting.

Here's a painting I've been planning on all month and finally got around to doing it. It's a painting of Jack from my book Jack the Pumpkin Head. It's available on Amazon, iTunes and the Barnes & Noble Nookstore.

Artist Notes - This a painting on a black canvas using acrylics.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 01 - Jack the Pumpkinhead

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but in 2008 I took on a personal challenge that for the month of October I would draw a different monster sketch every day and upload it. I've decided to do that again this year. Last time I used mainly one method, which was sketch it, scan it, covert it in CorelDraw, color it and finish it. This year, I hope to utilize a variety of methods - tablet sketch, black and white pencil sketch, CorelDraw, painted, maybe clay - we'll see what I end up with.

To kick things off, here is my first one for October. He's the main character of a children's book I wrote and illustrated called Jack the Pumpkinhead and you can get it at www.lulu.com/mcrosser.

Artist Notes - Done as a pencil sketch in a Dentist Office waiting room - maybe a dentist could be one of my monsters, hmm. Then I scanned it onto my Xoom tablet and traced it and colored it in Sketchbook Mobile Pro.

Jack the Pumpkin Head, Tulsa bookstore locations

As of October 2nd, there are two bookstores in Tulsa where you can purchase one of my latest books, Jack the Pumpkin Head. So if you are in the Tulsa area and you want one of my books, go support the two stores locally where you can find it.

They are:
Steve's Sundry, Books & Magazines
http://www.stevessundrybooksmags.com/

And also at Top Hat Magic & Costumes
http://www.tophatmagic.com/

Jack the Pumpkin Head, original sketch 1997

So, we were rooting around our storage and I came across some old drawings. I will end up posting some of these eventually, but one thing I found very interesting. I found one of the original sketches of Jack, from my new children's book, "Jack the Pumpkin Head". Kind of cool to see him since I just finished the book. He is a little fatter in the face, but other than that, he didn't change too much in eleven years.

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....