The Super Six

A couple of months ago I finished illustrating my third book for Capstone, "The Ugly Dino Hatchling." It just came out this week!

After finishing the book, my project manager asked me if I would be interested in working on some DC books for them. Capstone has long had the license to publish children's books featuring the animated series versions of DC Comics characters. Being a huge fan of the Bruce Timm produced Batman, Superman and Justice League. Even though I didn't know exactly what the project would be, I jumped at the chance.

Capstone asked me to give them some samples of the animated versions of Batman and Superman "in your own style," so I obliged with these images:

These were a bit off the mark, so I tried again, This time I sent them drawings of characters from the 1978 "Superman" and 1989 "Batman" films in the animated series style to show that I could apply that look to characters that had never appeared in the animated series:

From there I started sending them samples of characters that would appear in the books that I would be illustrating, with the understanding that I would need to adhere closely to the animated series models and that I'd have to ditch any thoughts about incorporating my own style into the drawings. I actually really appreciated knowing that I had to stay closely on model. It made my job requirements much clearer. In a job like this, clarity is a good thing. It saves a lot of time.

Long story short... I got the gig! It turned out to be a series of six children's picture books featuring Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash and Aquaman.

Usually with a job like this I wouldn't be able to show a lot of my work in progress. But I got permission to show bits and pieces as I progress through the series. Here are some WIP images fomr the work I've done so far.