November 2011 Turkey

Gobble gobble gobble. Here's another Thanksgiving themed November sketch.

Artist Notes - Done in Sketchbook Mobile Pro on my Motorola Xoom.

November 2011 - Day 01 - Hello Pilgrim

Day 01 - Hello Pilgrim.

So, after over double the traffic on my Sketch blog for October, I thought I might continue doing some daily drawings/sketches. Let's see how long this thing goes.  Here's the first a simple pilgrim's hat and gun in a flat illustration style.

Artist Notes - Done completely in CorelDraw X5 on my Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

Fall Fun Fest Scarecrow

For our annual Fall Fun Fest offered by our church as a community outreach, I was part of the signage team that designed signs for directing traffic.  I made a scarecrow to put on each sign.  Here he is.

Cartoon Football

Three days left until the great monster-palooza event. On October 1st, I'll start posting at least one monster sketch per day until October 31st. Until then, here is a little guy that I drew tonight born out of inspiration after another University of Oklahoma football win. Tomorrow I may post something drawn from the Tulsa State Fair.

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.

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

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.