Talk Story Bookstore

It's been a week since our return from Kauai. While there, I was able to talk with a local bookstore in Hanapepe about carrying 2 of my books. Talk Story bookstore, the western most bookstore in the U.S.! Wailoa & Kukui and Giovanni of course. They agreed to carry the books on consignment, which is absolutely perfect. It was a wonderful experience, Ed and Cynthia are 2 of the nicest people, and they seemed genuinely excited to have my books. I dropped off 4 of each with them, and by the next week 2 'Wailoa'  books had sold. I haven't checked in with them since returning home, but I plan on doing that today in fact. I'm just glad to have an outlet where these books can be introduced to their target market, Hawaii tourism. Thanks Ed and Cynthia!!!
A few photos:

Front and center on the counter!

Classic bookstore!

InTouch Credit Union

I have a meeting today with a regional representative for InTouch Credit Union to discuss the possibility of doing a children's book for them. The topic would be about money specifically for children. One of their representatives from our little local branch came and did a presentation to Alisa's class as well as all the other 2nd graders in the elementary school. I happened to be there as well that day and heard the whole presentation. It was quite clear to me that something like a children's book about money would be a wonderful way to promote their company while providing a service to new members or even existing members with children.
I haven't spoken with anyone regional yet, but my hope is to communicate my 'vision' for the book. It has the potential to be used company wide, the credit union has branches in 6 states: CA, NV, TX, MI, PA, VA. In creating a book about their mascot, Chip, it would be an educational book and would also have coloring pages, even lesson plans to be made available to elementary schools in future presentations. It's a really good idea, now to make sure I can communicate it effectively and still make some money from it!!!
My thought is to still have publishing control over the product, by assigning an ISBN I can list it on amazon and barnes and noble. Just doing simple math, their website shows 21 branches in those 6 states. If each branch needed 500 copies that's over 10,000 books, and 500 isn't very many! I'm thinking paperback too, which is even better because shipping is manageable. You can see that there is a huge potential for a residual income on this book. Other branding and products, such as the coloring pages, bookmarks, the lesson plans for teachers etc. This could be the start of something amazing, something life changing and HUGE!
I'll keep you posted as to how it all goes!
Hawaii in 2 weeks, I hope to make some connections there as well for selling my inventory of Hawaii books! A lot going on, including the convention in Orlando with Vaddio the week before Hawaii. Are we having fun yet?

It's all on hold...

Pictorical told me via e-mail that they didn't have the rights to publish my story in the US. Since I live in the US, it didn't make sense to continue that work and not have the story available to purchase for my own friends and family. They made a decent offer to make up for the mistake, but it got me thinking about the amount of work that it is to create illustrations versus the LACK of payment in advance or perhaps ever.
So, I put my relationship with that company on hold. I'm not sure I'll be illustrating for them after all. Stay tuned...

Finally...the MACHINE!

Final Disintegration Machine!

Sketch with Tesla lightning...

The Evil genius again...

Busy day. I finally had the inspiration I needed to undertake the rendering of the star of the story, the actual machine! I love how it turned out!

Road trip!

Leaving the office to visit Dr. Nemor

Preliminary sketch!

Hello again,

This represents the scene where the scientist and the reporter set off to visit Dr. Nemor and his machine. I don't necessarily illustrate a story in order. It kind of comes to me, and as it does I draw it down. Anyway, there it is.

Pictorical update

I've continued to sketch and draw in my down time in between jobs. It has been challenging at times visualizing the imagery, but I couldn't be more pleased with how Dr. Nemor turned out (he's the evil genius). I've put the text reference from the original manuscript as the caption for his illustration. Let me know what you think!

Here's the main character, the timid reporter sent by his editor to verify the claims of Dr. Nemor and his disintegration machine.

From the story... 

"...the next instant Theodore Nemor entered our apartment. I can see him now as he stood with the sunlight full upon him, rubbing his long, thin hands together and surveying us with his broad smile and his cunning yellow eyes.

He was a short, thick man, with some suggestion of deformity in his body, though it was difficult to say where that suggestion lay. One might say that he was a hunchback without the hump. His large, soft face was like an underdone dumpling, of the same colour and moist consistency, while the pimples and blotches which adorned it stood out the more aggressively against the pallid background. His eyes were those of a cat, and catlike was the thin, long, bristling moustache above his loose, wet, slobbering mouth. It was all low and repulsive until one came to the sandy eyebrows. From these upwards there was a splendid cranial arch such as I have seldom seen."

Progress on the Pictorical book

There has been a FLURRY of comments and conversation on the LinkedIn forum regarding this company. In spite of it all, I feel confident that what I am doing in illustrating this story in my 'down time' is worth my time.
I am inspired by this story from almost a century ago, and am really liking how it is going so far.
I finished the 'Capital Illustration' this morning and wanted to post it here to keep this blog up to date on this new endeavor.
So, here it is!

The sketch

The ink version

The color, final version

So, what does it represent?

The concept was to make the character a hard inorganic machine material. The "P" represents the machine that the story is about. There is a 'crystal' in the vertical section of the letter, which is referenced in the description of the machine. The curve of the 'P shows some slots, also mentioned in the description of the machine. The engraver swirls represent life, and growth, they are also mentioned as the author of the story describes the room in which the machine is found.

I kept the color palette subdued again, to follow the style of the book.

I'd love to hear your feedback, thanks for reading!

Pictorical

The sketch

The ink stage

The finished Professor Challenger!

   On Wednesday the 6th of April, I followed a link from a member of the Illustrator's Guild group on Linked In. It was for a new company looking for illustrators for classic stories which they would publish to digital media such as the iPad, at the very least.
   I sent in my application which really was just a link to my portfolio site at www.athertoncustoms.com. A few days later, Friday actually, I received an e-mail from Victor, the co-founder of the company, inviting me to join. He had looked through my portfolio and thought my style would be a good fit for the kind of illustration they were looking to have done.
   So the next step was to sign up on their site by entering contact and payment info for when the residual income starts pouring in! The deal is that I get to choose a story from hundreds of manuscripts, right now they are all from dead authors, classic stories, I don't know what the future will hold but for now I chose a story by Arthur Conan Doyle called "The Disintegration Machine". Very clever and imaginative story. The process then requires that I choose one scene to illustrate a full page. I've attached my illustration to this blog post for all to see.
   I am very pleased with how this turned out. I thoroughly enjoy working in pen and ink then coloring in illustrator. I am hoping to be able to render illustrations similar to those in my other published books, more digital, not because it's easier, because it's definitely not, but because it is more unique and I believe stands out from the crowd of pen and ink watercolorists! I'd love to hear your feedback about this new illustration. Do you like the style, does the emotion come through?
   I plan on keeping this blog updated with the progress of this new endeavor. Thanks for reading!