First Drawings
I spent a lot of time searching for an artist, many years in fact. I never thought in a million years I could draw the characters and pictures for my book by myself. Of course, I know the characters well and have thought about them continuously for over a decade. I decided to try my hand at an illustration for the first time in 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like most times when I’m truly inspired, I was on vacation in Puerto Rico, visiting family and friends. Of course, the island was locked down the day after I arrived. We were confined to our yard except to buy groceries and perform other essential tasks (groceries are the only excuse I can think of, though I’m sure we could have left our house for a medical emergency or hopped on a plane). I was also laid off and had a few weeks to myself.
So, I sat down at my computer, opened Photoshop, and began to sketch. I wanted to draw the scene when Campeon discovers the pirate ship in the hidden harbor. In my mind’s eye, I could see the image of a small orange cat standing in a forest clearing, looking out at a pirate ship docked in a small bay. The first drawing took eight hours, but I was on the right track.
Then, I decided to render the characters as I saw them. I did a few sketches in Procreate, which I used for Campeon, Captain Kitty, Cali, and Alfie. You can view many of the character sketches here.
After a few weeks, I was called back to work, and the rest of the drawings happened over the following two years. I worked on these when I was not writing. So I was either writing or drawing. You may think I spent a lot of time on this, and you would be right. I spent way more time than most people would need to take. It was so important to me to get it right, though. After all, I was writing a book because I was sick of Hollywood gatekeepers. I was drawing the art because I wanted people to feel and better understand the world. I can’t believe I’m finished with the first one.
What About AI?
For The Pirate’s Revenge, I completed 22 drawings, including the cover. For a brief moment, I considered AI for my artwork. Midjourney is a much better artist than me, and my books would have looked quite Disneyesque. I was visiting my friend Nancy in Los Angeles when I ran the idea of using AI by one of her producer friends. He told me that even though my drawings were less perfect, they exuded a sense of originality that AI could not capture. As a result, I steered myself away from using it and completed the drawings in all their rough and imperfect forms. I’m glad I did because we’re already saturated with computer-generated content.
