the ElePhotoBooth lives on!

I had a great day yesterday at Green Bean Books during the Alberta Street Fair and added over 100 new entries to the ElePhotoBooth Flickr set! Click here to see all of the new ones - here's a few of my favorites below:

Arfabet - final presale day!

Hey Beautiful People! It's the last day of the Arfabet Kickstarter campaign so I'm posting another update, as promised, to give a sneak peek of some of the pages I've been working on for the book!

Here's the cover, starring our Queensland Heeler

I looked closely at the original cover for Arfabet so the two would look good together

I'll let you peek at a few inner pages - but first a reminder of the original Edward Lear alphabet that inspired the project:

Here's my interpretation:

There might be some slight design details that still need some TLC before I go to print, but I'm about halfway done with the interior pages at this point, but will spend the next three days nailing those down, writing the glossary, etc. 

Phew! It's been a big month putting this together and I've loved being able to share it with you. I'll post a few more updates here in next few months to show you some more inside pages, and my work on the animation, creating the backer rewards, and preparing for the exhibition and book launch at Velvet da Vinci Gallery this October! Of course, if you're a backer, you'll get this sent directly to your email. 

If you miss out on the Arfabet Kickstarter campaign, I suggest you sign up for my email list so you'll know when the book is available for sale. Don't forget: the prices I set for the Kickstarter rewards are only available to those who signed on during this campaign. (I'm always up for creating custom dog figures though--click here for details.) 

ONE FINAL BIG THANK YOU TO MY KICKSTARTER BACKERS!!! I REALLY COULDN'T DO THIS BOOK WITHOUT YOUR SUPPORT IN HELPING ME COVER PRINTING AND PRODUCTION COSTS. 

YOU ROCK!

photo shoot!

Hey Beautiful People! I'm back yet again to show you some behind-the-scenes views of my photo shoot today for Arfabet! 

I put together a mock-up version of the book last weekend, where I took my own photos so I could make some big final decisions like the best background colors, how to position the figures so the text would interplay with the dogs, and then to see how the two facing pages looked together. This is a really important tool to have when I go for the real photo shoot because it saves me precious time and money to be able to refer to my mock book, set it up, and then have a real pro take the final shot. Please note that the text you see here is only a placeholder--I will use a different font for the letters, and I haven't even finalized the exact wording of the rhymes or the phrase at the bottom of the pages, but it's just enough to help me going, and serves as my first draft of Arfabet:

you may be able to see here in the J page that I didn't like the original placement of the figures, so I moved them around in Photoshop--then we matched that in the photo shoot. I also decided to change the background color from gray to pale blue.

Here's the entire cast of Arfabet, layed out on a nearby table so I can grab them as needed. There will be six backdrop colors--red, yellow, pale blue, sky blue, pale pink and hot pink. The front and back covers, as well as the title page will have white backgrounds, just like Elephabet.

Here's a few shots of my photographer Dan Kvitka working on the A photo. We first do the actual shoot, and then Dan takes it over to his computer to look at it up close to make sure everything is in focus, dust or dirt particles are removed, etc. 

When there are clouds involved, the wires or other support mechanisms are digitally removed.

Dan loves to bring his sweet dog Manny to work with him - here he is critiquing my version of a Yorkshire Terrier.

We had a mid-afternoon visit from artist Ryan Berkley, whose studio is in the same building. His daughter Ramona loves dogs, so she and Manny were instant buddies.

Some shots are a little trickier, like getting the Xoloitzcuintli and Xouba to ride these waves in the book that are different from the ones in the actual sculpture. I'll crop the sides for the book, of course.

So now I get to spend the next few days putting the book together! I'll check back one last time before the Kickstarter campaign ends to show you a few of my finished pages. If you are still waiting to pledge, the time is nearing! Click here to choose your reward and help me get my second book in print!!