TOE CHEESE CHIMPLE!!!

Here's a selection of the final stinky-footed, bogey-filled artwork from There's An Alien In My Belly Button: The Toe Cheese Chimple! written by Hothouse Fiction and published by Egmont. The final cover they went with has a bright blue background, but I thought I'd post my favourite of the colour alternatives. There's going to be a series of these books, so keep your eyes and noses peeled!

TOE CHEESE CHIMPLE - PROCESS!!!

I recently worked on a new kids book series, 'There's An Alien In My Belly Button' by Hothouse Fiction and Egmont. The first book, The Toe Cheese Chimple comes out in July. I did a full colour, wrap-around cover and approximately 30 black and white inside illustrations. Here's a quick look behind the scenes at the character development stage for the series.

Above are the concept designs for the main alien character, Binko. I began (with page 1 and 2) by throwing a bunch of different designs out there to help pinpoint, through a process of elimination, what the authors were looking for. Then we worked back and forth until the character evolved into what we have on page 4.

Next I had to nail the main human character Pete (see below). Again it was a case of trying various initial approaches (pages 1 through 5) based on reference and descriptions that the authors provided. Then, again working with the client's comments, I tweaked details like noses, ear sizes, hair-flicks, until we arrived at the design that everyone was happy with on page 9.

And lastly there's G-Bob. His final design eventually became a mix of the two different approaches below. Next I'll post a selection of final artwork from the book.