I started in on the pencil work for “A Sick Child”. The goal here is to do an illustration for each paragraph. That will make the book about 25 pages depending on if I do any full spreads or not. I’ll probably get there, but I’m plugging away one at a time now that school is (mostly) back in session. Once I get ten pages in I am hopeful that I’ll have all the stuff worked out that I need to work out to try and get this kickstarter worked out. What I want to accomplish mostly is to get paid for the work I am doing and also to have the printing costs covered so that the book is printed at a quality level that I can be proud to hand to people when it is completed. I have done none of the math on this yet, but it’s going to cost me roughly 50 dollars an hour for the pencils and inks (the book is going to be black and white, although I might be persuaded to do a color cover and sell the oil painting (as a reward for the highest tier or something). I’ll likely make the original pencils rewards as well and then some prints or something. I do not know, though. I am still very early into this process and haven’t had a ton of time to think about the details of the kickstarter rewards or the campaign. But I am excited about it, and I am hopeful that once I talk to Dusting about it in more detail that he’ll be excited about it as well.

If this one goes well, then it’ll be motivation to work on more of them down the line. If it doesn’t go well, then we’ll figure out another way to get it done. But I assure that this book will get out into the world. I’ll start to post more of the art as it’s completed and talk more about it as I go. This is cover that might not actually end up being the cover since Naomi is drawn a bit too young for the close of the book. But I do like this image regardless and will likely take it to finish.

I’ve nearly finished pencils on 4 of the pages now, and I think it’s going to just make the most sense to do the inks digitally for the purposes of formatting the book later, and also because when I make a mistake at some point or want to mess around with some different ideas it’ll be easier on me.

Here you can see Naomi’s prosthetic leg and her eye patch, and she is about to take flight at the story’s close. And, as I type that out, I wonder why the cover would give the ending away? Not that anyone who wants a copy of the book and supports it on kickstarter will be surprised by the ending anyway. I don’t really believe that surprise endings are a hallmark of things worth reading. So if that is your thing then this isn’t likely for you, and that is okay. I love you regardless of your reading preferences.