Here’s a personal piece I just finished. I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons with my family and I think it’s sad how orcs are depicted as just a bunch of mindlessly aggressive monsters. They have families, right? They must. So, here’s a candid portrait of an orc dad and his offspring.
Here’s the 11th illustration for the book project I just finished for Learning A-Z. Page 13 of The Neighborhood’s Night by Juliana Catherine.
This is the last one set in the school gymnasium. Amaya is crying after learning Juana’s news. Their house didn’t make it.
Here’s the 10th illustration for the book project I just finished for Learning A-Z. Page 12 of The Neighborhood’s Night by Juliana Catherine.
In the gym again, this time all crowded around a new character, Juana, who is covered in ash.
So, here’s the new version of the Kissing Story page I posted before. If you remember, there was some concern that the public display of affection was too much for the children’s market in the original version. So, here is a new version with the parental kissing off-panel.
Here’s a new sample. This is page 1 of a comic book I’ve written that my art rep will be sending out later this summer. Hopefully we’ll get someone interested in it. There was some interest in this character from a previous sample featuring her, so we’re hoping it will sell.
This sample reuses the first four panels from that previous sample. (I reformatted it for rectangular panels and changed the shading style.) The last two panels are new.
The working title is Kissing Story, but I don’t really care for that. Hopefully we’ll come up with a better one. It’s an age-appropriate story about sexual harassment and consent.
I may actually need to change the panel with mom and dad kissing to have them not also hugging because my rep says that may be too much physical contact for the age range. So, I may post a revision with that changed. We’ll see.
Another commission for Learning A-Z. This one is a family packing up their living room and kitchen, getting ready to move.
One problem with this scene was that they wanted both rooms to show, but in a portrait-oriented image. So, I decided to make this house a front-to-back split with a short stairway between the two levels. That let me put the two rooms one in front of the other, but with the kitchen a half-story higher so as to increase the height of the image and keep the living room from blocking it.
It’s done entirely in one-point perspective. Everything except the people and a few curves was drawn with virtual rulers.
It’s probably a small mid-eighties tract home, judging by the layout. One that’s been updated with wood floors and new appliances. But the kitchen is still too small and it doesn’t have a dishwasher. I’d move too, if I were them.
We’ve been ice skating a lot this year, so I drew this.
Get it from shutterstock here.
Karen B. Jones - Illustrator 