silly

Birds in Hats

Top Hats Erika Schnatz
| Erika Schnatz

It’s been some time since I’ve had my work displayed anywhere. There was that one time I had a piece up in a robot-themed show at a taco shop, and then someone STOLE MY PIECE OFF OF THE WALL, so maybe that’s the reason it has been a while? Or perhaps having a full-time job was the culprit.

In any case, I drew some birds in hats for the Tiny Wonderland show at Leanna Lin’s Wonderland in Eagle Rock, CA. The rule was nothing larger than 5″x 5″, so I found some 4″x 4″ panels and was plagued with indecision until several days before I need to mail out my work (nothing like artistic procrastination). I quite like these silly little birds, and if you like them too (and would like one to hang on a wall), a few of them are still available on to purchase: https://leannalinswonderland.com/collections/tiny-wonderland-art-show

 

Cat Detective in Color!

Erika Schnatz Cat Burglar
| Erika Schnatz

Like my previous post, this was another let’s-color-this-in-Photoshop-at-the-last-minute-because-I-need-a-new-portfolio-piece situation. I’ll likely go in and play with the color a bit in the future, since I like this character. Maybe he could get his own picture book.

Erika Schnatz Cat Burglar

Animal Doodles in Glorious Color

Erika Schnatz Animal Doodles
| Erika Schnatz

So I drew these animal characters ages ago for some Daily Doodle prompts on Twitter, but didn’t color them in until last week when I was desperate to find new pieces to put in my portfolio for a children’s book conference. It wound up being one of the strongest pieces in my portfolio since I haven’t completed many kid-appropriate illustrations in the past few years. I’m going to see how this style works with my new picture book dummy, because I need to figure out a color solution that is not terribly labor intensive. I have over 30 characters on one particular spread, so for the sake of my sanity I’d like to keep it simple.

Erika Schnatz Animal Doodles

 

New Story in the Works

Gentleman Walrus Sketch Erika Schnatz
| Erika Schnatz

It’s been some time since I’ve worked on a children’s book idea, so today my goal is to draft a story for this proper gentleman:

Gentleman Walrus Sketch Erika Schnatz

He was a character I created for another writer’s manuscript in my children’s book publishing course, and I really enjoyed drawing him. It’s likely he’ll evolve a great deal over the drafting and revision processes, but I’m looking forward to writing a story around a character. Should be fun!

Here are a few more images of him from the dummy children’s book I created:

Gentleman Walrus Sketch Erika Schnatz

Gentleman Walrus Sketch Erika Schnatz

With a face like that, wacky hijinks are sure to ensue.

Here Be Dragons!

| Erika Schnatz

For my Book Design class this term, I had to design an entire book (it was awesome!) so here are the cover comps I came up with:

This first one had some nice elements, but it looked a bit old for the target audience of this book (middle-grade level readers).

I really liked this design as well, but it looks like an adult book.

This one was the clear favorite of my peers. It was by far the most age appropriate, and since it’s a book for younger audiences, I could get away with having an image-based back cover. The author photo and bio is much more of an adult book element anyway.

Here’s the final! I made some suggested improvements, like handlettering the text on the cover and adding the dragon’s arms to hold the banner. I obviously redrew the front and back illustrations as well, and added some cracks around the dragon butt to add to the illusion of the dragon breaking through the back of the book cover. My classmates liked where the colors bled outside the lines in the comp, so I replicated that in the final. I moved the ISBN box to a more sensible place as well.

I had some trouble finding reference images for the dragon’s butt, but as multiple people reminded me, dragons aren’t real so I could draw it however I liked.