Illustrator and Substitute Teacher

Back in November I became a substitute teacher while I look for other work, and I actually really enjoyed it. This year I was able to substitute as an art teacher even on several occasions. Whenever an opportunity arises to draw for a student they are amazed and realize I am a professional illustrator right away. Here are some concept drawings for a kid’s book and some form shadow practice.

Improving my Illustrations

I’ve been improving my art skills all around this year much more. I would be remised to not share this nice artwork I did about a year ago. I have started work on other books which is exciting, and have chosen the one I plan to finish first. More updates to come soon.

 

Digital Watercolor Painting

I’ve been working on my illustration skills lately, because I want to have a version of Heaven’s Blade with full illustrations and a map in it, I also want to be a better color illustrator for my series of children books I have in mind. 

Book Cover: Digital Painting vs Ai

My original book cover was a pencil drawing I did that was brought into Paint.NET and photoshop, then was painted by me using digital brushes. It took about a month to do. This year an Ai version was done by my brother and edited by him, which took about an hour, in this post you will see that Ai edited book cover. In some ways it is better and I have been told it might even draw in more sales, but I am also told by some that my original one is eye catching and more genuine. The advantages of using Ai art are not as cut and dry as some might think.

 

Digital Art vs. Ai Art

This year there has been a big growth in Ai art. Ai art and Ai written papers have been all over the news. Digital artists use a lot of traditional art skills which takes hours of effort, while Ai simulates that effort from a sentence prompt input by the user utilizing a database of thousands of images. I have done many prompts myself. This has made me amazed at our technological progress but I have studied popular art techniques now and have grown to appreciate traditional art even more. Here is an example of a digital prompted artwork of an angel flying holding a sword (like from my book) in watercolor style.

The Born Significancy

I became a father in 2022. It has been time consuming in many ways but other authors have a time in their lives devoted to raising kids as well. I have gotten some practice writing and illustrating over the past year, preparing for my next books. I hope I can make my son proud.

10,000 Followers on Twitter and Other News

This year I reached 10,000 followers on Twitter. It was a big moment, that was back in May.  In June I did a narrated prologue with illustrations which I posted on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.  Since then I've been pretty busy, so I am glad I am finally able to post to my page again here. Another bit of exciting news is that my book is now available at Walmart.

Working on Art and Writing

I've been working on my writing still, but I am also an illustrator so I am working on my art skills as well. I got to do some actual oil painting with my brother, it is very messy and hard to clean up after. Fortunaitly I also have an iPad Pro my wife got me last year. I get some good practice on that as well. Here are some of my Bob Ross style skills I did on that. It is called Violet Sky Over Mountains.

 

Heaven’s Blade Artwork Continues

I feel that a book should have a lot of artwork associated with it to spark interest. Here is another one of mine for the Heaven's Blade Book that is now available with many sellers.

 

Sketching The Scenes. My Book Is Now Available At Target

Here are some sketches of scenes from my book, just some cool action poses. And I just found out recently that my book is now available at Target.