Some Non-kids book project doodles

yep mmhmm. Kid's book is still on the tracks, but I've been keeping busy with some other ventures.

Project Kid's Book Update 7

     Heyyyy, long time no see eh? Yeah, sorry bout that, I'd like to be able to say that there's a good reason why I haven't posted anything in a while. I'd like to say that I've been too busy with adventures and side projects to even bother with the idea of updating the blog. But sadly, that's not quite true. Not to say I've spent the last month sitting with my thumb in my butt, I actually have been very busy with both adventures and side projects, just not enough to merit such a long absence from the blog. Sorry.

Sneak peek

 
     So, now that that's all taken care of, I can give you the low down on the kid's book project. When we last left off, I said that I was about done revising the rough draft (#6) and all I had to do left were the illustrations. Now, I'm still pretty happy with the rough draft, but since I started the illustrations, there have been a few things along the way that I've thought about changing. So it seems that I'll be revising this thing till it's completely and totally finished (which I hope will be soon). According to my storyboard, there should be a total of 17 pages (including the cover art), and as of my last library session from this morning, I've inked in the better part of the first 7 pages. It's an incredibly exciting and terrifying feeling; finally, after months and months of planning and preparation, taking ink to the page. My entire arm was literally shaking the first time I tried to make a permanent mark on the page. I'm not used to this kind of high-risk-doodling, so I was a bit out of my element. But if I can just buckle down, and get the last of the pages inked in without making too many mistakes, or suffering a hear attack, then I'll be one step closer to finishing my book.

     After the illustrations are done, then I will scan each drawing and upload it onto my computer where I will attempt to edit the drawing (even though I've never edited any work of art before). That's where I'll put in the text for the book. From there, who knows? I'll keep you posted, hopefully I'll be more punctual this time. Cheers!

Project Kids Book Update 6

     Since my last post, I've printed out my sixth revision and finally started on only what the most generous of souls would call illustrating. See, I wanted to get an idea of what the animated scenes would look like when they had text accompanying them, so I cut up rough draft number six and glued each scene onto a blank sheet of paper and drew a (really) rough sketch of the story under each section of text. After I had an illustration for each blurb of text, I stapled the sheets together and had my very first version of an illustrated kids book, which was a pretty damn good feeling if I might so. Now I can read my story, and flip through the pages, and even stop and show pictures (not that I'd want to with these drawings), which is pretty exciting.

Project Kids Book Update 5

     So the story is about as done as it's gonna get, now it's time to get into illustration mode. I posted some pictures below of what the characters looked like at the beginning of last month verses what they look like as of now. Take a look, here's most of the characters.

Sue, the shoe

Marcus, the banana 

James, the music note

Ramona, the sunflower

Project Kids Book Update 4

     Rough draft number 5 is hot off the press and I'm pretty pumped about it. Up until this fifth revision, I was working with a messy, bulky, uneven blob and revising was about as effective as fitting a couch cover over a leaking toilet; it's a small improvement, but it still reeks like shit. I'd move things around and work on the phrasing of certain things, but the story was still far from finished.
      That being said, I decided to draft from scratch. Instead of mercilessly ripping my draft to shreds with my stubby red colored pencil, then trying to figure out what the hell I was talking about later when I'm translating my blood red scratches into the typed copy, I simply started from scratch. I keyed in each scene on a bran-spankin-new document screen and only used rough draft number 4 as a reference if I really reallllly needed it. It took about 3 hours longer than I would've liked, but you know what? I think it did the trick, because on my desk lies the stapled embodiment of a draft that I'm not totally embarrassed about. Now I just gotta do at least one more focus group sesh with the kids from work before I can even think about the illustrations.

P.S.
All the characters have names and I've even sketched out most of them, I'll post a picture when I'm not so sleep deprived. Cheers.

Project Kids Book update 3

     The project had taken residence in the back seat of my priorities this past week, but I'm back for the most part and ready to get this drafting thing over with. Of course, my story is still chunky in all the wrong places, but I did manage to get some helpful criticism from some readers and I'm (hopefully) going to apply some of that to the story this weekend. I looked up some kindergarten and first grade vocabulary words (which are pretty impressive) what I'm gonna try and squeeze into the rough spots of the story. But the good news is that I'm on the detail side of revising now. Like at first, Gadget the Robot, was going to be the only character that wasn't a human, but after my mom read my latest draft, she suggested that I make all the characters some personified animal or whatever. And I think I like that idea, it's more kid-friendly, and frankly, I'm terrible at drawing human faces (win/win). Now I just gotta decide which animal I'll chose for each character. So far, I have; a dancer, a musician, a magician, and Gadget's friend. The dancer should be something light and nimble, probably a rabbit. And I've decided that the magician should be a fox, because it's sly and mysterious, but I'm still drawing a blank when I try to think of an animal to be the musician. Whatever, I'll think of something. But that's about it for now. The month is about halfway over, which means I better pick up the pace if I want to complete this goal by July. Better get on it.

Project Kids Book update 2

     The past week has been nothing but a blur of drafting and revisions of the story. I'm proud to say that it's better than it was, but it's still not great. It's still awkward and bulky sounding at times, but it's getting better. I've renamed the robot as well. From now until the next time I rename him, he shall be known as Gadget.
     I've also been forcing myself to face a big fear of mine with this project; criticism. I've been actively asking others to take a look at what I've gotten so far and even asking them to give me their honest opinion. And when I think about it, there aren't many other things in life that are as uncomfortable as waiting for an opinion while someone evaluates something you created. Watching them as they read though is nerve-racking, but I figure it's the only way to make a book that isn't terrible. So far, I've received a bunch of helpful criticism, and I could always use more. So if you're in the neighborhood, and you'd like to have a peek at it, please let me know, I'll thank you for it later.

Project Kids Book Update 1

Storyboard 

Add caption

     Since my last post, I've punched out one hell of a rusty rough draft. I've gotten the bulk of the story drawn out, now comes the time for me to trim it up till it looks nice and dapper. Not having a name for my shining star had been annoying me, but today I think I may have stumbled upon a winner. To come up with a name that would fit the personality of my robotic main character, I did what I always do when I have a problem, I asked the internet. Fortunately, the all mighty Google answered my prayer and I found myself on a website called the Internet Anagram Server (which cleverly anagrams to "I rearrangement servant"). I spent some time searching possible anagramable names from words and phrases like "robot" and "talented bot", but it wasn't until I searched the results for "Scared Robot" that I received my gem. "Scooter B. Rad" is the name that caught my eye. I like it, it's simple and it's fun, and I think it's got potential for my scared little robot. So say hello to Scooter, the newly named robot.
     Oh and one more thing. I took my really rough draft into work today for a little focus group time with the kids. I read them the parts of the story that I had typed up, and I made up the parts that I didn't, and I showed them the concept sketch of Scooter to see if they were feeling what I was selling. Both the beauty, and the downside of pitching a story to a group of first graders, is that their criticism is nonexistent. It was great to hear that they liked the idea and the drawings, but I didn't get much feedback as far as the mechanics of the book (and yeah, I realize how dumb that sounds). But I would like to polish up the draft a bit and go reread it to some of the little ones to make sure that all the words are first-grade-friendly.
     So from here, it's just a bunch of drafting (which is surprising, considering how short the book is) and a lot of illustrating. Cheers.

Project Kids Book

My main character- the unnamed robot

     Project time! I've recently taken on the task of writing and illustrating my very own children's book. Here's how it began; I work with children, and I've spent quite a lot of time reading kids books in the past 9 months since I've started here. Within these few months I've read hundreds of short stories to the kiddos and every time I finish I think the same thing every time, "I could totally do this". So for the month of June, I will attempt to write and design a children's book from the ground up, in hopes that it doesn't suck as hard as some of the books I've come across.
     So far, I've gotten the basic concept and some of the characters penciled in. It's the story of a young robot (who will remain unnamed until I can think of a name that fits) and his struggle to find his own unique talent for the talent show. My goal is to have the actual story punched out and finish all of the illustrations by the end of the month. We'll see how it ends up. Cheers.

James- the facemelting guitarist

Concept sketch

Overthinking

     I've always been aware that I have a tendency to overthink situations, but it wasn't till I was browsing the magazine rack at a decrepit grocery store in Nebraska that I realized how much of an overthinker I've become. I was skimming an issue of Psychology Today while my friends were busy gathering last minute grill necessities for our camping stay. The cover had advertised help dealing with "people with difficult personalities", which seemed like a better alternative to browsing canned corn, so I read on...
     Inside it described four broad personalities and a brief tidbit about each one. There was:

          "The Hostile"-which are short tempered, fiery people who are frequently disagreeable.

          "The Neurotic"-pessimists who specialize in the shooting down of others ideas.

          "The Egoist"-basically those who think that they're hot shit.

          "The Rejection-Sensitive"-(which is the personality that I identified with the strongest) is people who over-worry and overthink every facet of their life to the point where they overreact to any and all indications that they aren't liked by others. Basically, it's the fear of rejection. As I read though the article, I became all too aware how closely I identified with the "Rejection-Sensitive" personality. It described me in ways that I've always known but never actually noticed, and (like the overthinker that I am) I kept thinking about my newly diagnosed personality for the remainder of the camping trip. In fact, the first thing I did once I got back home (aside from shower) was go to the book store and pick up that very same copy of Psychology Today. Since then, I've spent the last two days rereading and overthinking about the entire realization, and here's what I've come up with:

     I'm an overthinker, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Simply put, it means that I'm introspective and I choose to express certain words and thoughts as opposed to just spewing out whatever crap idea comes to mind. The downside to this personality, is whenever I'm in a situation that deals with people other than myself, instead of actually talking to the people who are involved to settle things, I attempt to mentally play-out how others would react in the given scenario on my own. As you can probably guess, this strategy is about as practical as it is dumb. The thought that I could mentally predict how others will react using nothing but my own perception of that person is idiotic, but for some strange reason, I still do it.
     As an admitted overthinker, I can say that having a little social problem (which we often have) and a lot of free time (which I often do) will almost certainly make for a lot of wasted time overthinking. When something is bothering me, I find myself examining every square inch of the ordeal for days or even weeks until eventually, I'm even more bothered by how sick and exhausted I've become overthinking about what annoyed me than I was by the initial problem. When you do most, if not all of your problem solving in your head, things seem to get twisted and contorted till your rational about the situation doesn't even make sense anymore. It's like when you repeat a particular word in your head over and over again until the word eventually becomes unhinged from its meaning. Except, when it's a particular scenario that you're constantly replaying in your head, your mind has a way of bouncing all of your inner thoughts and ideas and opinions and emotions off of it till the scenario that you started off with is now a foreign thought. Your mind echos the annoyance over and over and after a while, that little annoyance seems like a whole new monster.

     After reading (and rereading) the article, I've come to the realization that I use this thought process whenever I get the slightest hint (regardless of how logical that hint is) that someone does not like me simply because that's what I've always done. This way of thinking doesn't work, and it's an utter waste of time, but I figure that realizing that, and more importantly, admitting that fact, is the best way for me to get over myself and become the Kyle I'd like to be. Here's to a Kyle who is in control of his thoughts and does not flinch at the thought of rejection. Cheers.

I want and want and want...

     I want to be great.
          I want to be someone who always has something going on and something up his sleeve. I want to squeeze the living juice out of every single day from here on out. I want to crawl into bed exhausted beyond belief at the end of every long and strenuous day, and wake up refreshed and excited to tackle the day before me. I want to be sore, I want my body to ache and my mind to race. I want to live a life that's worthy of death. That's worthy of looking back on and saying "What a loss". I want the roots of my interests and talents to expand in every direction till all that surrounds me is a lush forest of the person I'm becoming. I want to be awake all the time. I want to be up and at'em at all hours. Always keeping myself busy, constantly progressing. I want every waking moment of my existence to be the product of the countless hours logged in hopes of being someone that even me at my worst can't help but admire.

     And I want to want more all the time.

Sleep walkin

     Here's a mishmash of doodles from the past month for ya'll to enjoy...