I’ve also posted a couple updates on the Kickstarter that I didn’t post here mostly because a lot of it had art that’s already been posted on the blog in times past. But There’s some new stuff over there too that you might not have seen so here’s links to those posts:

Update #14: The Clock Is Ticking!

Update #15: Last Day!

And because it goes against my grain to do a blog post without artwork here’s some sketch cards I’ve been drawing for the $40 backers. Try to bang out a few everyday:

I wanted to update you guys earlier this week, but I got sick, and my wife and kids got sick, so sleep and rest was in order. But I’m 100% now and working away on the book!

Secret of the Spacecave

Here’s the latest Secret of the Spacecave pages:

Hugo Earhart Story 2

The story is written out and I’ve begun some concept sketching for a new character:

Antler Boy Development Art

Wanted to show you some art from the making of The Antler Boy story. Here’s some of the first sketches of the character and me trying to visually figure out what this story could be about. I knew I wanted to do a fairy tale, but wasn’t sure exactly how to tell it. All I had was a boy cursed with a set of antlers and he went up against some monster of some kind.

Out of these ideas the story developed into a tale of an encounter with a witch where the boy helps her and return is given “Blessings upon his head” for the grace granted by him that day. I also knew I wanted to push my style with this story so I drew this test panel  to figure that out:

Well, his blessing turns out to be more of a curse, and at it’s core the Antler Boy is about how you deal with bad luck. We’re all hit with bad stuff in life and I wanted to tell a tale with how to turn those liabilities into good fortune. When the Antler Boy is faced with a giant attacking the city the cursed antlers turn out to be quite the asset as you’ll read in the story.

And lastly, here’s the process from thumbnail drawings to final art.

Again, please share this with everyone. I got an email from someone yesterday who just discovered Antler Boy. They had not heard anything about it beforehand and were so excited to have found it before the campaign ended. So there’s still plenty of people out there that want this book, but don’t know about it yet. If anything just send out a link to this update. That should pique some interest.

Ok, that’s all for today! Thanks everyone. Bye!

New Antler Boy Book Art

There’s also one more way the book is better because of you: You remember the $250 rewards I’ve been drawing? They’ve all turned out so nice I decided to color them and put them in the book as art for the chapter breaks between stories. Seemed everyone should get a chance to enjoy these drawings.

4 x 6 Art Cards
Not only that I’m getting a set of 4×6 cards made and I’m including one of these cards in each book. So each book, whether you order 1 or 10 will have a card in it.

I’m also adding a couple new rewards tiers for those who would like the whole set along with their book.

New Prints
These pieces also look great as prints. So I made a new reward tier for 12.5 x 9.5 in prints. I framed one up for my daughter’s room:

The Rewards
So, just to break it down clearly, here’s the new reward sections:

If you’ve already pledged at higher levels and would like to add a print or a full art card set to your pledge adjust your pledge by adding $10 for the art cards and $25 for the print then shoot me over a comment saying what you’d like added and I’ll make a note of it on your pledge.

After the campaign is over I’ll send out a survey getting info about which print you want.

Ok, I think that’s it for today. As always, thank you for backing, for commenting, and for spreading the word on Antler Boy!

I just wanted to send out a quick update that we did it! We hit the $60,000 stretch goal this morning! Thanks to everyone who backed both old and new and especially to all of you who increased your pledge amounts. You guys have surpassed all expectations.

I’m getting right to work on the new story this weekend and will be keeping you guys updated on that and the rest of the book.

You’re the best, have a great weekend!

Antler Boy is at $57,600 which means we are sooo close to unlocking the new story!

It could even happen today if everyone tells a friend about it. When I made that goal I honestly thought we’d be hitting it at the midnight hour of the campaign. I can’t believe there’s 13 days left and we are just $2,400 away from hitting the $60,000 mark. Thank you, each of you, for backing this. I’ve got a great idea for the new story and you’ll love it.

I’ve started drawing the sketches for the $40 and up backers. Going into this I didn’t expect to have this many backers pledging at this level. So the task of sketching something for each of you is daunting, but I’m up for it! And today I did the first 16 of them. These will be placed in the book with something not permanent so you can take it out and put it up somewhere without damaging the book, or leave it in there. Up to you.

I originally wanted to draw in each and every book, but if I’m not getting the books back from the printer until September there’s no way I’d get these all out to you by the time I said I would.

Almost done with the $250 rewards. Here’s a photo of the Professor from the Secret of the Spacecave story:

Lucy Nova Artwork

Wanted to share with you some Lucy drawings and sketches from the years. Below is a couple of pages from her first story:

One of the things I wanted to with the Lucy comics was to infuse them with all the stuff I like about those DK Eyewitness books, with cross sections, diagrams, and little asides about her world. Like when she gets swallowed by a giant alien:

And here’s some sketches of her and the creatures in the story:

After I finished the first story I felt like her design was too realistic and I wanted to stylize her a bit. Below you can see her evolving to a more caricatured look.

And lastly this is the first page of her second story. You can see her form is more simplified now.

Ok, that’s it for today. You guys rock! Keep spreading the word and getting eyes on this book.

Wanted to share with you some Robot and the Sparrow Development Art:

The Robot and the Sparrow is probably my favorite story from the book. It’s was my 4th comic story I did after Hugo and both Lucy Novas and I wasn’t so much in the mood for an adventure story any more. A story about friendship and loyalty seemed about my speed at the time. Here’s my favorite page from the story:

And here’s some early concept sketches of the robot. I thought it’d be funny if he had a hidden jet engine in his back that he didn’t know about.

This was the precursor to the Robot. I did this illustration as a Christmas present for someone a year or two before drawing The Robot and the Sparrow.

And this was an illustration I did for the Flight show at gallery Nucleus when the book launched.

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#2 – I started work this weekend on the $250 pledge rewards:

I think they’re coming along nicely.

#3 – I put up a new incentive called The Missile Mouse Package. If you’ve been following me for a while MM needs no intorduction, but if you’re new to my work, Missile Mouse is a graphic novel series I wrote and drew that’s published by Scholastic. Of all the short stories in the Antler Boy book Missile Mouse is the only one to have gone on to its own series…yet. So I thought it’d be great to put together a MM package for $125. What you get:

• 1 signed copy of The Antler Boy and Other Stories
• 1 signed copy of Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher
• 1 signed copy of Missile Mouse: Rescue On Tankium3
• 1 signed copy of Flight Explorer (The anthology that the first MM story originally appeared in, contains 10 stories by some of comic’s finest.)
• An original 8.5×11 in Missile Mouse drawing like one of these:

I’m initially limited this incentive to just 12 due to supply and time. And they sold out pretty quick so, I’m initiating a second round just so no one is left out.

MISSILE MOUSE PACKAGE ROUND #2

Ok, that’s it for today. I have some more new incentives I’m getting ready to roll out this week. Keep passing the word along about Antler Boy. And again thank you so much for all the support!

I’m cooking up some new incentives and rewards, so keep an eye out for an announcement next week sometime.

I wanted to share with you some development art for the Hugo Earhart story. First up, a couple finished pages from the story:

This spread shows a bunch of the characters and vehicles that were the most exciting part of the development process. Below are some of the first Hugo drawings. I loved the idea of a boy flying on a mini sperm whale , and wondered where it would go. And if you’re going to have a flying whale, you might as well add a flying pig sidekick.

Once I got more comfortable with the designs I decided to do a final piece of them together.

Hugo encounters a Sylph Woman while on his delivery job and is struck with her beauty. The Sylph were the original whale riders and ruler of the skies before the advent of machined flight. Here’s some sketches of her.

And if you know me I love my flying machines so figuring these boltships out was a lot of fun. On the bottom is one of the massive capital ships of the of the Green Army.

Thanks for looking at this and please pass this along with your friends.

Actually, speaking of that, I’d like to know how you heard about this project. Was it directly from me? Word of mouth from friend? Social media of some kind? If you heard about it from someone’s blog, post a link to it, I’d like to thank that person.

Thanks!

Today though I thought I’d share a little of the making of this book. Last summer during a run one night it hit me that time is short and I shouldn’t put off making this collection happen. However, a big creative roadblock for me was figuring out under what story or title would I hang all the stories on. Before I arrived at the Antler Boy I was entertaining the idea of calling the whole book The Secret of the Spacecave. I really liked the sound of that and so I went with it. Here’s some initial sketches and rough ideas.

I liked this stuff, but really wasn’t feeling it. I knew it needed something different.

So I toyed with calling it The Robot and the Sparrow and Other Stories…but that’s too wordy. A friend suggested just calling it Star Thrower, but I found another book with that same name that was a collection of short stories. What about just calling it exactly what it is: Side Project? But that didn’t feel specific enough, and is a little impersonal.

Then one day in a meeting I scribbled this:

That was it. I loved the idea of all the characters hanging out in the boy’s antlers. And I decided to call it The Antler Boy and Other Stories.
The following is how it went from a scribble in a notebook, to the final cover image.
After the first sketch I’ll do a larger rough and nail down the figures and poses. This was done digitally:

Then I printed out my rough and using a light box drew a nice rendered version of the cover on vellum.

Originally I was planning on putting my CC & Benson story in the book, but I decided I had other plans for those guys and replaced them with Missile Mouse. Just a little redraw, no problem. Once it’s scanned in I did a digital linework pass, just to make things a little crisper.

Then I added the pencils with the line work and digitally painted in shadows and highlights.

Then add the color, touch up the rough spots and it’s finished!

Thanks for checking this out, and if you want a copy of Antler Boy head on over to my Kickstarter page and back the project.

Thanks!

Click here: The Antler Boy and Other Stories

Really quick, the numbers as of this morning:

Ok, so what does all this extra funding mean? Well for starters it means you all get a better book. The book will have a higher production value to it. Better paper, better binding, it’s going to look great.

It means I’ll be able to put more time into the design of the book. Time is money, right? Because of the extra money this campaign has generated it means I can say no to some freelance work that would eat into the time of the making of this book. I want to add some illustrations to the table of contents and introduction and give all the extra stuff that goes into making the book a little more love.

And it also means I can afford to produce an eBook version of it for the kindle, nook, and iPad. Looking into my options for that now.

As this campaign progresses I’m working on some new incentives and stretch goals, so stay tuned and follow me on twitter for more info: @mrjakeparker

Another thing.

I’m on Jason Brubaker’s Making Comics podcast. He posted it up yesterday. We talk about all kinds of stuff regarding story, drawing comics, keeping it simple AND Daniel Lieske joins the conversation too! It’s awesome. Go listen to it while you’re at work today, it’ll be fun:

Jake Parker on Making Comics #12

Lastly, some making of snapshots of Secret of the Spacecave the last story in the book: