Hero's Guide II

Here's the nearly completed cover to the second book in the series. This is a photograph of the actual book - an advanced reader copy. I'm still working on the interiors and there are still a few tweaks to make to the front cover, but this is more or less what it will look like.

That was a lot of characters to fit into one little area and there are just as many on the back cover. The composition was tricky, but there was one thing about it that I loved. When my awesome art director at HarperCollins gave me the description for the cover, she referenced the Paul McCartney album cover, Band on the Run. I pretty much had the Band on the Run song stuck in my head for all the months I worked on this, which made me happy because it's a great song. :)

The book will be out in May.

Rapunzel's Tower

This is the tower Rapunzel lived in until she was rescued.  By herself......   

Yet more art from The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy.

Gustav attacking a troll

I am about half way done with the illustrations for the 2nd Hero's Guide book. I have been going back to reference a lot of art from the first book as I redraw characters for book 2. This has made me want to post more images from the story. The author wrote a hilarious battle between these two. Just ask the lady holding the shovel. It's seriously funny.

Meet Gustav

Gustav is the youngest of 17 children. His mother had two sets of octuplets, then him. He's the prince associated with Rapunzel, but as for saving her....he didn't. Gustav is one of the four Prince Charmings (er, Princes Charming) in The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy. Charming he is not!

video game art

Last Pirate Art

And here's the last of the pirate art. The game comes out at the end of October.

MORE pirates...

More Pirates

Some more art from the pirate game.

Pirates!

I did this art for this game.

Same image, pre-painting

And here she is placed on the card for the game.

More Sketchbook Art

From the Sketch Book

Concept of a top secret project I'm working on. Having personal projects to work on in the rare moments I'm not working on work projects keeps me happy and sane.  I love riding the train because it's just about the only time I can find to develop this story.

A Flying Mermaphrocorn

Mermaid + Hermaphrodite + Unicorn.

Don't ask. I don't want to talk about it.

Tak Environments

I dug up some old Tak stuff today. I think all the Tak stuff I used to post was only characters. It's interesting to me to see these and see how my style has evolved.

A Progression That Proves My Immaturity

I was riding the bus with my kids and I drew them in my sketch book. Then I was at the beach with them and drew a shark eating my daughter.

Then I drew my kids as shark riding adventurers.

And this is where it got really bad. My kids like to tell me really ridiculous things to draw, so this is me riding a giant mutant box jelly fish into victory against the shark riders.

My parental strategy for keeping children happy consists of drawing dumb pictures and talking about poop, farts or body parts. I'm amazed at how long I can keep them giggling by doing only this.

Mount Olympus

I designed this digital image for a theater set and then painted the actual set - WITH REAL PAINT BRUSHES! It's been a while since I've done that. It was really fun, but I realized how babied I am working digitally because my back is killing me now.

Process

I saved 30 versions of this piece until I had the final. Here are a few of them.

This is the sketch I started with. I was hoping they would choose the middle one, but they didn't.

.

See the final on the my previous post.

Blizzard Art

Sassy Cow

A friend commissioned this bovine beauty.

Epic Mickey

This is one of the last pieces I did when I was at Disney. It was for the game Epic Mickey. I've never played the game and I have no idea if it made it in. Anyone else played it? Is it any good?

Mt. Batwing

This morning I was going through some early art for Hero's and laughed at some of my attempts. It's amazing what a process art can be.

For instance...

I was supposed to draw the witch's fortress. I sat down to work on it around 11 pm. By 4 am when I went to bed I thought I had come up with something cool. I still think it's cool, it was just reeeally off the mark from what the publishers were looking for.

I learned a lot in working on this book. One of the most important is to read the instructions! Sometimes I get an image in my head and just jump in without making sure I'm doing the piece correctly. The following image is what was used in the book.

One of the dangers of having a wild imagination is that you might need to hire someone to help you reign it in...

Woohoo!! It's out today!

Buy 10 copies today! And 10 tomorrow! (I don't get royalties, but I still think you should give one to everyone you know)   Christopher Healy wrote a great story and I am stoked I got to be part of it.  It was a super fun project and now while you start reading book one, I'll keep working on book two.

Linkage

Here's a dorky interview I did for Hero's Guide. http://abackwardsstory.blogspot.com/2012/04/ftf-interview-todd-harris-illustrator.html

You can also listen to the first few pages of the book there.

More Hero's

 Duncan

 Lila

 

Snow White

Hero's Guide Art

Here is some art from a book I illustrated, The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom. It will be in stores on May 1st. It was tons of fun to bring such a great story alive visually.

It's about some fairy tale characters that get mixed up in an adventure together after the "happily ever after." 

 

Singing Bard. 

 

 

Ella (short for Cinderella)

Frederick.

D&D 4

 

This is an elf smashing a cultist in the face. One thing that is sometimes hard for me is posing characters. These cards were a good challenge for me in helping to improve that weakness.

D&D 3

Here's another D&D card. This depicts a paladin offering to protect a wealthy merchant. 

More D&D

Another dwarf, another shady deal, another D&D card.

Lords of Waterdeep Art

I did a couple pieces for a new D&D game. This one shows a shady deal going down with a female dwarf and a noble dude. The art was used for cards in the game.

Train Sketches

My car died. Indefinitely. This means I spend a lot of time on public transportation. The p.t. system in Los Angeles is an experience. I see some crrrrrazy things on the buses and trains of this city and I always feel like I need to take a shower when I get home.

I am so busy working that I never have time to sketch or figure draw anymore. For this reason I have come to love riding the bus. I draw my fellow commuters.

Most of the time I like to draw the hero in them, bring our their noblest traits.

But not always....