This book is aimed for elementary school libraries. The reading is fairly easy (suggested levels are grades 3-6) with the main focus being on how I came to be an illustrator, along with some career highlights.

I never thought myself worthy of having a book written about my life, which is why I’ve yet to do an “Art of Tony D” book. Besides, I am always looking forward to my next project, with that feeling that I am on the verge of the next big artistic breakthrough…though looking back, I realize I have accomplished a few things here and there. You don’t really realize it as you are experiencing it, only in hindsight does it become a bit more clear.

I like this series of books. Not because I am the subject for one, but because they focus on illustrators (both past and present) who have had an impact on children’s publishing. 10 year-old Tony would have LOVED this series.

As I read through the manuscript with my illustrator’s hat on, I realized that with WondLa I am often faced with the same dilemma I had with the Spiderwick books – What image do I draw? What scene or action is the right one to illustrate? How can I present the story to the best of my abilities?

My general rule when illustrating the chapter images in a novel is to render the most exciting scene from the chapter without giving away too much. I want to entice the reader to keep going, turn the page, read just one more chapter, before they put the book down. Sometimes I pull it off, sometimes I don’t. It is a tough balancing act.

I know what you’re thinking, “Why not illustrate the scenes in chronological order? Why not illustrate the opening passage of the chapter?” Because often I find those passages are not that exciting. Usually, the opening lines of a chapter are a setup leading to a turning point in the plot contained somewhere later in the chapter. If I were only to illustrate opening lines, you would not have gotten this in chapter 32 of The Search for WondLa:

…instead, you would have seen an illustration of Eva reuniting with Muthr in the Royal Museum of Solas. Sure, it would have been a nice emotional moment, but you wouldn’t see how menacing the pillar guards are. Besides, this was one of the first sketches I did for the book. I couldn’t wait to finish it. This leads me to my first rule of thumb on choosing a scene to illustrate:

If I think its cool, chances are the reader will too.

Let me elaborate: If I am excited to draw something, that enthusiasm is going to come through in the work. I’ll put in the extra effort to render it to the best of my ability and hopefully the reader will respond positively. Of course, there are other reasons for choosing a particular scene to illustrate. Here are some of my determining factors:

Reader Comprehension – An author can spend pages describing what a scene looks like, (sometimes bringing the story to screeching halt) or simply show what something looks like. This approach is used in my picture books and I have adopted it into my middle-grade novel illustration. It has helped especially in complicated, otherworldly things in WondLa, like the towers of Lacus (as seen above). I want my younger readers to enjoy the story and not have to labor too hard over the text.

Elaborate on a Point – Sometimes I want emphasis on something in the text so that the point is understood or the moment made more memorable. For instance, in chapter 10 of Search for WondLa I wanted you to see that Otto (and therefore all giant water bears) are capable of leaping quite high. For those who’ve read the book, they will tell you this comes into play later in the story.

Focus on a Passage Less Described  – Sometimes the opposite is true. I like to take a moment or passage that is passed over briefly in the text and add to it. This is absolutely the approach I use for illustrating a picture book as it can add greatly to the size and depth of a story. Above is a image of Hogsqueal boasting about capturing Jared and Mallory from Spiderwick. Holly’s text simply read,

“I caught the humans,” Hogsqueal called.

Yet it is obvious in the art that there is no way Hogsqueal could handle that sword, let alone disarm Mallory. So the art here elaborates on the text showing that Hogsqueal is bluffing.

Setting the Mood – One of the more important aspects in choosing a moment to illustrate is what emotional tone will it convey that is concurrent with the text. I did this throughout the Spiderwick series by use of a color plate tipped in the front of the book that represented the general mood of the story. For the finale, The Wrath of Mulgurath, the image (above) represents the struggle of good against evil as the sun sets (i.e. time is running out) on our heroes.

All of the above factors contribute to my choices on what passage of text should be rendered. As I said sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don’t. Below are a few examples from The Search for WondLa where I had to make tough decisions. Do you think I made the right choices?

This is a thumbnail drawing of the opening image for chapter 14 (mislabeled here). It was to be a bird’s-eye view of the gymnasium in Eva’s Sanctuary with Rovender and Eva finding Muthr at the bottom of the pool. I wanted to show more of Eva’s Sanctuary and the destruction caused by Besteel, but I felt that this zoomed out view lessened the impact of the disaster.

Here in the final art, I switched the focus to Eva and we can see how distressed she is (Setting the Mood). Can you imagine walking into your house and it looks like this?

Above was one of my favorite sketches done while developing the story. It simply depicts Rovender telling Eva to get off of his home. I liked it because it showed an entrance to a Sanctuary and gave a clear depiction of what Rovender looked like. But this action fell at the very end of chapter 7, so putting it as the opener would have diffused the surprise at the end of the chapter. In the following chapter, the interaction between the two characters is more intense, so it would have lessened the tension. Consequently, it was not used.

Another sketch not used was this one from chapter 26 showing a worried Eva locked in a cell at the Royal Museum of Solas (again, the sketch was mislabeled). Though she is a bit lanky here, I loved the body form and the fact that I could demonstrate how Eva is relying on her Omnipod to get her out of a sticky situation (instead of using her head). However, I thought it best to illustrate the two alien characters that are introduced in this chapter instead. Besides, at this point in the book we’ve seen Eva enough times to imagine her in her various states of fear.

Anybody recognize the critter in the cell second from the left? Like my other books, WondLa has little nods to characters in my other stories. I’ll have to show you sometime…but that’s another blog post.

Okay, back to illustrating.

Most of this work was created late in 1994 and throughout 1995. I had been illustrating for Dungeons & Dragons and Planescape for a couple of years at that point, and was visualizing how my art would look in books for children. Though my style and technical skills were becoming more apparent in these images, they all lack any real sense of exhibiting action or portraying a sincere moment. At that point, all I strove for was to create finished scenes in a style emulating my favorite artists.

Interestingly, I (temporarily) moved away from pen & ink for many of these samples and used a combination of colored pencils over acrylic paints. (I had yet to discover the acryla gouache that I use almost exclusively for my painted illustration nowadays). This early technique was certainly influenced by the style of illustration that dominated during the mid-1990′s. Artists like Gary Kelley, Carter Goodrich and Chris Van Allsburg primarily used pencils (or pastel in the case of Gary’s work) which gave their images a grainy texture.

On top of that, I was (obviously) looking at Brian Froud and Arthur Rackham’s fantastic work. However, there is a lot of composition and figure placement inspired by Maxfield Parrish. Though these artist’s stylistic influence is strong in these pieces, their process was also affecting mine. I began using model reference, just like Parrish would have done, for this image of a traveling elf listening to directions from a dragon…

…in fact, the elf’s pose is taken from my old college life-drawing book, The Human Figure by Erik A. Ruby.

Also, I began drawing trees and plants from life, just like Froud and Rackham would have done, as can be seen in this image titled “Lost in the Wood”.

I remember completing this piece and beginning to write a story to go with it. Methinks I see a proto-Thimbletack hiding behind the limbs on the left.

I also played with various sorts of watercolor paints (tubes versus cakes) and colored ink combinations. This would have been happening concurrently with the illustrations I was creating for the Planescape and Changeling role-playing games. In these samples I tried to mesh the line-work into the painted illustration so the image was less outlined. I tried inking my drawing prior to painting, and inking it afterwards, as can be seen in this sample of Mr. Toad from The Wind in the Willows where only certain details were inked.

These unpublished samples mark a huge learning period in my life. I became comfortable with certain mediums and techniques allowing me to shift my focus away from my artistic inspirations and create images drawn directly from my own imagination.

As 1995 came to a close, the spec piece below was completed and the seed for  Jimmy Zangwow was planted. I didn’t know it then, but I had bridged the gap. And it was not a gap created by lack of understanding artistic mediums and compositions – it was one caused by relying too heavily on my influences and inspirations. All I simply needed to do was put them aside and draw from my gathered knowledge and imagination.

As the story and characters of WondLa developed, I conjured up the things I loved about Star Wars. My hope was to instill some of that boyhood wonder into my own story.

After toying with the possibility of re-illustrating Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, I found a form and shape that I liked for my alien character…but something wasn’t quite there yet. He looked a little lighthearted, perhaps a bit comical, and that wasn’t the curmudgeonly mentor figure that I was writing about. So I held onto aspects of his design that I liked, such as the long legs and thick forearms – features that seemed Star Warsy, but not too Star Warsy (its an adjective. You know what it means. Feel free to use it).

The face was a different story. I wanted a face that spoke of intelligence before the character itself spoke. I wanted a face that could express emotion. A face that could act and convey what the character was feeling from my line-drawn illustrations.

This “cat-frog” design didn’t work for me. Somehow, Rovender looked too much like a Spiderwick creature here, and I wanted a character design that said “alien”. Then, one night while watching a documentary on penguins of the Antarctic (from the BBC’s Planet Earth series), I sketched this.

This looked like an alien that was intelligent, that could talk, that was capable of expressing many moods. And the flight jacket was just the right amount of Star Warsiness that I wanted (you can use that word, too). On top of that, I’d hit upon the notion of “distinctly-marked” alien types as opposed to incorporating the earthy, mottled patterns I had continually used in Spiderwick. (Bear in mind, this was back in 2008, so I had no idea what sort of brightly-patterened aliens James Cameron was cooking up for Avatar ).

(Its interesting to note that I have listed two films for my alien reference here instead of my usual book and illustrator inspiration. I believe it is because I could not find a whole lot of illustrated sci-fi/fantasy middle grade books to look at AND when I do find a film that I am inspired by, I usually track down the accompanying “Art of” book. So, I am not just taking note of the designs in the final film, I am also drawing inspiration from the concept art done in the pre-production phase as well.)

I began pattern and texture tests in Photoshop over my inked drawings to see how the final art might be created for the book. As I did so, I tried out different bird markings on Rovender’s form. I started with markings inspired by a Belted Kingfisher…

…and then a small shorebird known as a plover…

…but ended up with a pattern that used elements of both.  The Lima bean green skin-tone changed as the story evolved. Rovender is described as a washed-out cerulean at the beginning of the tale, but becomes a rich iridescent blue by the end. Here he is from the cover to the paperback edition, due out early next year.

Rovender’s role as Eva’s mentor will change and grow throughout the second story and this will continue into the third. Though his physical form is finalized, I plan on trying out various costume and accoutrement combinations so that his look remains interesting.

It has been a wonderful journey so far, and I can’t wait to see where this roving, wandering alien takes me next.

Back in August of 2003, as I began work for the fourth Spiderwick book, I started thinking about re-illustrating a classic text after the Spiderwick series was complete. I spoke with my editor at the time, Kevin, and he thought it a good idea – especially given how well my rendition of The Spider & The Fly was received.

We discussed lesser-known classics that might be enjoyed by readers of today and arrived at Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars. Like his other classic, Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs’ sci-fi adventure was action packed with lots of fighting, rescuing and all around swashbuckling. I loved it when I first read it in middle school and I still love it today.

Aside from the coveted Frank Frazetta Doubleday editions, which came out in the 1970′s, no one had really tackled publishing a re-illustrated edition since Frank Schoonover painted the illustrations for the 1917 first edition. Excited, I began to re-read A Princess of Mars with sketchbook at my side.

I soon theorized that to bring in a new audience of young readers I would initially shift my focus away from the human characters – like the hero, John Carter, or the martian princess, Dejah Thoris – and spend time on the unique alien life forms. More specifically: the unusual four-armed Tharks, the tribal aliens that John battles throughout most of the story. It was in their redesign that I focused most of my creativity.

As I worked through the variations of Burroughs’ martians, I thought of my own story centered around the wandering alien. I revisited (what would become) Rovender’s design during the Princess of Mars sketch session. As I do so, I infused some of my Thark designs and felt like I had made some serious headway on his general appearance, which in turn, began to inform his personality.

In the end, Spiderwick‘s success and hectic schedule did not allow me the time to illustrate A Princess of Mars. I did continue with my “new take on a classic” idea and it evolved into Kenny & The Dragon. The energy for designing the characters for Burroughs’ world went into designing characters for my own world. But, as a nod, we designed the WondLa logo to harken back to those old John Carter books that I cherished.

Over the years, I wondered if I’d made the right move in letting A Princess of Mars slip away. I remember having a chat with Brian Selznick about this very thing: spending time and energy illustrating a classic versus your own material and he concurred that, despite the allure, my choice to focus on my own stories was the best decision. After all, the original text will always have its original illustrator – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has Sir John Tenniel, Winnie-the-Pooh has Ernest Shepard and so on. Perhaps, one day, my name will become synonymous with certain texts. I suppose only time will tell.

PS – Last year, I was approached by my WondLa editor, David, about illustrating the first three Mars books by Burroughs – Yes! A second chance! To say that I was over the martian moons would be an understatement.

But reality set in and I realized my workload had changed very little since 2003 (a good problem to have for sure). Even though I already handed in a cover sketch (seen above), I had to pass once again. In turning down the offer, I did send over a dream-list of illustrators who I thought could really bring Mars to life. I included established names as well as up-and-coming talent. Simon & Schuster is set to publish two books (the first three Mars stories in one volume and a new anthology – both illustrated), which will be released in February of next year. They hired many of the names on my dream-list including friend (and fellow Magic the Gathering artist) Mark Zug for the marvelous painted covers. I’ve had a sneak-peek at some of the interior art and it is awesome!

In Part 3: As WondLa becomes a reality for me, I refine Rovender’s design while trying to keep from becoming too Star Warsy.

Like many of my stories, the inception of WondLa began as sketches. I was thinking fondly of Jim Henson’s fantasy films, fairy tales, and the visions of French artist, Jean Giraud Moebius. From this inspirational pool came a character simply called “The Traveler”. This first drawing came to me while I was still working on role-playing games, like Planescape. And you can see in the drawing above, shapes and forms similar to the characters I had designed for that game. But there was something more to this sketch, something alive. This was a character I yearned to construct a world around.

Over the next year I worked on a myriad of freelance projects and began to seriously develop the manuscript for my first picture book, Jimmy Zangwow. From time to time, I would revisit the story of The Traveler in my sketchbooks. I started to craft a fantastic alien landscape for him to explore. I realized that this Traveler was some sort of alien himself. And yet, despite his alien-ness, he was someone I was sympathetic to. Perhaps it was his searching for his place in the universe that echoed my own yearning to find a niche for my creativity.

As I began to understand who this character was on the inside, I tried to figure out what he looked like on the outside. My first attempt was an extremely alien being, as seen in the pen & ink sketch above.

But that form was too bizarre and I returned to a humanoid figure. This time I infused it with some of his personality. I wondered what it would be like if this character was frustrated, moody and not an easygoing wayfarer. This certainly reflected my own frustration at the time as I labored to  break into children’s publishing.

In Part 2: Edgar Rice Burroughs helps me out.

Now that I am back in the studio, I’ve access to all of my art archives and have been adding lots of crisp new scans of some older art to fill up the galleries here on the site. Of particular interest are some color character designs from my children’s books like Jimmy Zangwow and Alien & Possum.

I even found some color studies done a few year’s back for WondLa (like these early designs for Besteel). In fact, there were so many variations of Rovender Kitt, that I think it will warrant its own future post.

Also, I scanned in a nice selection of my favorite Magic the Gathering card images. I realized I’ve sold most of the artwork off, so the collection here is limited (however, the R. Michelson Gallery in nearby Northampton does have a few originals for sale.) Enjoy browsing the artwork and let me know if there is something you’d like to see more of.