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!

Second printing of "Lucky!"

I know you can't tell from the photos, but the book is a much better quality that the print on demand books from Lulu. And they are ONLY available from my website or from the author Adam London when you see his show on the strip, or special event. To follow Adam you can start from his website: http://www.quackmagic.com

I am very impressed with the sturdiness of the new cover, and the thickness of the interior pages. We've dropped the price to $7.95 (+$2.50 shipping) and added an update to the publication page. This is the first book I did and I still love it! If you don't have a copy yet, what are you waiting for? It's so cheap! Get it here:

AthertonCustoms / Publishing