Turned my doodles into books!
I usually doodle and sketch a lot. Mostly for other peoples projects. But when I have time I like to draw fantasy and Sci-Fi ideas. I started thinking maybe I should do something with my sketches. So I did.
I had to learn how to take my sketches from paper or my iPad to a form that people could use. Starting with downloadable coloring books I used the Etsy platform to make the books available to everyone.
It’s been a fun process and really has reignited my passion for drawing and developing ideas. As I get more into self publishing I’m working towards creating ideas for graphics novels and children’s books.
You can download these books and MORE at my website or on ETSY. You can even find my books on Amazon! Printing on Demand has really changed game in publishing.
ONE OF MY FAVORITE CARD GAMES
As a kid I loved the card game “Concentration”. My early coloring books already had most of the basic content to go vertical with the product. I picked my elements and drew a few new ones to create a full deck of cards.
3 GAMES IN 1
Robots, Rocketships and Aliens! You can play it as one big game or a quick game and just play one of the sets. Even though it gives you a color hint you still have to make a match! I thought this would help make the game easier for a younger crowd.
Letter town
During one of my sketch lunches I started doodling fairy houses. I made a little neighborhood of 18 houses and called the coloring book “Welcome To The Neighborhood”. When I published the e-book I realized one house looked like the letter “H” and I wondered if I could make a whole alphabet like this? Now it’s spawned a series of ABC-123 books.
spaceship letters
As I was putting the finishing touches on the fairy house letters I started concept art for spaceship letters. Refining my process even more it made the development of this book even faster. I also really like spaceships so this was especially fun!
Castle Letters
Castle Letters is the final book in the series, although I might talk myself in to doing another one.
This book represented a new stage in my coloring book design process, while my earlier books started on paper. This time I scanned in the rough drawings and put them on my iPad Pro and cleaned up the work in Adobe Draw.
By doing this I was able to collapse my process into 2 steps. Making the creation of this book much faster. Adobe Draw files import directly into Adobe Illustrator. While there was some clean up it was really more about fixing some line work here and there. Plus I could work on this book while on a plane.
Doodle Garage
Inspiration:
I love car shows, I’m not a gear head but I appreciate it as an art form. As a kid my Dad would take me to the “World of Wheels” at Bartel Hall in Kansas City. I was always inspired by the possibilities. I noticed an sketching trend where the objective was to fill one sketchbook with one theme. I filled the book and picked 50 drawings.
Doing something a little different I turned the book on it’s side. The cars fit the page better with that aspect ratio and they could be larger.
