The Snowman Parade has begun! I’ve spent the last several days drawing, drawing, drawing snowmen (and women), penguins, snow bears, and more for “The Snowman Parade”–one of the scenes in my upcoming Monster Look-N-Find book. I work full-time as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer, so it’s been fun taking breaks from my paying jobs…
Aside from making my own Monster Look-N-Find book on Kickstarter, I’ll be making a special community look-n-find with YOUR monster drawings! Email your colored monster drawing to jess.smiley@gmail.com by April 15, so that I can include your monster in the picture. Files should be a 300ppi jpg in rgb. (If this frightens you, then get…
GUEST AUTHORS & ILLUSTRATORS One of the great joys in my life is when I get to visit schools and libraries to talk with students about writing, drawing, and making comics. I loved it when guest authors and illustrators visited my schools! It was an education to see the creator’s work in person, and to be…
RESOURCES My new “Resources” page has been getting a lot of hits, so I thought I’d talk a little bit about what’s available for creators. For now, the page contains 8 printable handouts that I created for last week’s LTUE event for writers and artists. Each handout covers a different topic, for a variety of…
My family owns all of Oliver’s books. We love the guy and what he’s done for storytelling with words and pictures. If this is your first time hearing about Oliver, then check out his website and get your hands on everything that has his name on it. Related articles Oliver Jeffers, funny guy (rarestkindofbest.wordpress.com) Design.…
Biting Off More Than You Can Chew? “Think for a moment about your typical workday. Do you wake up tired? Check your e-mail before you get out of bed? Skip breakfast or grab something on the run that’s not particularly nutritious? Rarely get away from your desk for lunch? Run from meeting to meeting with…
Going to LTUE? Here’s my schedule for today: 2PM Working With Clients 3PM Art for Children’s and YA Books 6PM Writing for Comics and Web Comics 8-10PM Book Signing In case you missed yesterday’s event, here are some of the handouts I gave to panel attendees (click for full, printable size):
Here’s an interesting article I read on self-publishing–specifically on self-publishing comics. Although I don’t agree with everything Stef says, and I certainly don’t work in the same format, size, run, etc. she did, a lot of the information is extremely useful for beginners. It’s a great overview of what really goes into self-publishing a comic,…