We've been featured!

A big thank you to columnist Andrew Heller for his article about me and my work in the Flint Journal this past Sunday! http://blog.mlive.com/flintjournal/aheller/2013/05/andrew_heller_little_things_ca.html

I'm truly blessed to have supporters in Michigan. I did this sketch of him to say thanks the best way I know how. Thank you everyone and be sure to pick up a copy of The Pick-up Princess today!

Pick-up Princess website: http://www.animatedchildren.biz/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BalloonCatAnimation

9!! Featuring Catherine Huyck!

9 DAYS UNTIL OUR APP LAUNCHES! Today we look at the first person I brought onto the project. 

Catherine Huyck: Background Artist 

Back when I was a kid I was obsessed with collecting beanie babies. I don't just mean a few, I mean dozens. I had a huge Rubbermaid container full of them. But by far, my favorite was always Bones the dog. He was plain and simple, and always there no matter what. I could also easily stuff him in my pocket so I took him everywhere.

Working with Cathy was so much fun and she provided some of the best ideas for toys ever. Wherever you look in her work, there is always something completely off the wall; whether it be a walrus with a mustache or a Viking ship. Stay weird Cathy!

A Very Late Princess Update

As we're heading into the final turn, things have really picked up and I'm afraid I have neglected my Princess Update Duty! However, today holds some exciting news!

My friend Paloma is doing all the lettering for The Pick-up Princess and just got 10 pages done. In about 3 hours. Yes. She is a goddess. A goddess of lettering. Anyway this means that 10 pages are officially ready for publication! I've sent some things off to my editor to see if we're good to go. As long as the last few scenes get done this week, we should be in business in no time! :D It's hard to contain my excitement!

Pictures taken from Google, please don't hurt me for using them... 

e-book update: SOUND!

This week I met up with the author and her mother of the animated e-book The Pick-Up Princess in order to get the narration for the book done. Originally, Katrina's mother was going to be the only one doing the narration, but she thought it would be fun if Katrina did a reading too. They both did a really great job, so I thought I would share a little slice of our work today! (note: the images in the videos are ones that I threw in because I couldn't post an mp3. They are not the final images attached to the sound. And for some reason they messed up when I posted them here. So just listen and ignore the strange visuals.)

The above is done by Katrina's mom Lisa.

This next one is done by the author herself.

We still haven't decided which narration we're going to use for the whole book. Katrina is the author and did a really great job reading, so it makes sense to use her. On the other hand, her mom has that nice motherly tone that goes great with a children's book. I'll probably end up cutting both and seeing which my editor likes better. 

Princess Update: The Start of Summer

Last week I finished finals and traveled back home for a well deserved break. My boyfriend and I are celebrating by watching continuous episodes of my new addiction: Game of Thrones. Unfortunately, this has also made me a bit lax about working on my animated children's e-book "The Pick Up Princess". I'm still hopeful for a launch sometime this summer, but I doubt much work is going to get done before I head back to Savannah for my summer classes. Long distance boyfriends and family sometimes take precedent.

The Leviathan Scene

On the upside, I finished another scene this week, so I only have one more scene to clean before everything goes into the color stage. The downside is that the last scene I have to clean up is a crazy mess of lines with 120 separate drawings that all need to be subtle and precise (you can see a few of them just above the drawing of Mom and Princess in that timeline). Through out the whole clean-up process, I've been working on this scene off and on. Every time I try to tackle it, I just get frustrated and move on to a scene I know I can clean quickly. This is my great white whale. Hopefully my story with this mighty beast ends better than Captain Ahab's.

The Pick-Up Princess--We Have Color!

Despite a pretty heavy work load from school, production of the animated children's e-book, The Pick-Up Princess, is still going strong! This week I have a few screen shots of the first fully colored animation! 1 down, 13 more to go! This scene was completely done by myself, but hopefully in the coming weeks I will be able to show some of the work from the talented crew of colorists that are also working on the project.