Princesses & Puppies (a.k.a. a faux-Christina post)

About a month ago, I replied to a listing on Craigslist in which a woman said she wanted someone to illustrate a book that she was writing. Even though Craigslist is mega-sketch, I decided to reply anyway because I figured, since there was nary a penis to be found in the post, this woman might be for realsies.

Well, she actually replied back saying that she liked my stuff and wanted to give me a 'test run' to see if she liked the ideas I had for her characters (a girl who dresses like a princess and a golden lab puppy). I got really excited that I had actually heard from someone for once, so I replied the next day with what I thought would be the cutest friggin sketches ever.




I think they kinda look like I tried to mix Bill Watterson and Chris Sanders' styles with my own, resulting in something that looks a little like creepy muppet babies. But they're still cute. Right? Sorta? . . . Maybe if you squint.

Anyway, I heard nothing. She couldn't even offer up the courtesy of an "Oh hi, thanks for the sketches but YER STUFF IS RANK, SMELL YA LATERZ POO-BREATH" e-mail. Maybe she thought I had to have been a big ol' weirdo because I said I imagined her character as someone who would watch Eureeka's Castle. Her loss.

Super Post!

So, at the beginning of the summer, I decided it would be a worthwhile venture to try and read everything on my shelf of 'I Never Got Around to Reading This/I Started This But Never Finished' books. I was gonna start with The Lovely Bones, but about 60 pages in, all I could think about was how awkwardly horrible the Peter Jackson adaptation was and decided maybe it would be best to stop.

And then I saw it. My bound collection of Pullman's His Dark Materials series. I started reading The Golden Compass three years ago, but stopped halfway through because I was foolish enough to try and power through it during a super busy quarter. Oh, and also because the cover is SO GODDAMN UGLY.

Is this not the ugliest thing you've ever seen? Uhm, excuse me. I was referring to the book cover.

Anyway, I decided that if a cover is so frustratingly ugly that it prevents me from wanting to read the book, it might be in my best interest to redesign it. So once I finished the series, my first order of business was to sketch out each of the characters I wanted to feature in the cover. Unfortunately, life kinda got in the way of this project, so I only have three done.

First we have Iorek Byrnison, the rightful king of the Panserbjorne who pimp-smacks the jaws of his opponents clean off. I drew this while riding in a car (and my dad is not the smoothest driver), so some of it is a little rough. Namely his feet. Those damn feet.

Next up is Nameless/Gracious Wings, one of the many ugly-ass harpies who guard the underworld. I gave her this wicked liver-spot on the top her head, but when I drew in her hair, I had to cover it. It looked too awkward without hair on that part of her head. Not gonna lie, I cried a little. It was a really good liver-spot.

Lastly, we have Serafina Pekkala and Kaisa, witch queen (and all around fierce bitch) and her snow goose daemon. No, I did not intend for her to slightly resemble Alanis Morissette. And that's not ironic, so don't even think about making that joke.

I also found my color comp from when I tried to make a cover for this back in Power's Materials + Techniques class, and decided (since it sucked inordinate amounts of butt) I would give it a facelift (i.e. fix the color and put in loads of superfluous detail to try and cover up how awkwardly disproportionate the drawing is) to try and make it match with the new character designs I did.

This comp features Ms. Coulter, Lyra Belacqua, and their daemons The Golden Monkey and Pantalaimon, respectively. As you can see, the one on the left is just a hot mess. Maybe I was scared of blending colors three years ago? Lyra's prominently blushy cheeks makes her look like a Victorian Era prosti-tot, and apparently Ms. Coulter has a hickey. Anyway, this also features three of the limited amount of things I liked about the movie: Ms. Coulter's hairstyle, her claw-like fingernails, and her daemon's Reverend Al Sharpton-esque hairdo.

So there you have it. I still intend on doing more characters and eventually making the cover one day, but I guess right now my primary focus is getting employed so. . . this is on hold temporarily? We'll see.

Oh, and by the way, has the world gone mad?! Am I, Chad 'avoided-making-a-post-for-a-whole-year' Jacobs, really the one keeping this blog alive? Preposterous. Remedy this.