#too much trouble

…I discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness… envy and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance…

…I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good… The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion…

…dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment… I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion… But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine…

For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires… I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this?

Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? …I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on… my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice…

…My work is nearly complete… Do not think that I shall be slow to perform this sacrifice… Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames…

—Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

To everyone who shared, messaged, bought a book or told a friend:

One more day until preorders close for The Boy Who Was Too Much Trouble! Thank you to EVERYONE who has come out in support of this sweet book that has been following me over the past four, very eventful years of my life.

There are always pieces of concept art that you’re unable to use for the final (for whatever reason), and generally if you’ve done your job right, and you’ve really gotten to know the characters, there are a LOT, and it’s hard to let them go. I’m glad I have this space to share my absolute favorite: Ricky Rumpus, Big Brother.

More development art of the family from The Boy Who Was Too Much Trouble! (available HERE until July 15th) The siblings, and Mom and Meema.

Ricky is supposed to be about 5-6, and his sister 8-9 - I wanted them to have distinct face shapes and expressions, and I used this character sheet to figure out a style that kept that level of expressiveness while being speedier than my typical watercolor work!

I have been accused (rightfully) of making Mom look a lot like me. I rebut this only with a) I’m probably about 30lbs heavier than Mom, and b) I never wear cateye glasses. Otherwise, there are lots of blonde, pixie cutted, long nosed women in the world.

Thumbnails were a great way for me to get to know the characters of The Boy Who Was Too Much Trouble! Here we have firstly the cover concepts (how do you show a child is energetic and chaotic, and accurately convey the gravity and tenderness of the book, while still remaining lighthearted and appealing?). I still like the bottom right, it feels extremely Bill Watterson to me.

Below, we have the Great Baby Design Challenge - Ricky imagines acquiring the baby as an activity similar to going to Chipotle, and we went back and forth quite a lot about whether we wanted his imagination to look as though Ricky had drawn it himself, and in what level of detail. I still think the Babytron 3000 is hilarious, though not entirely the correct tone for this book.

The Boy Who Was Too Much Trouble can be found HERE until July 15th!

Development sketches from the children’s book I illustrated, The Boy Who Was Too Much Trouble!

The author and I really wanted to create a realistic-feeling family that didn’t necessarily tick all the white-suburban-hetero-two-kids boxes. As we discussed what the family would look like, we realized it was important to both of us that books exist that reflected other types of families, without being specifically geared toward explaining them to an assumed “normative” customer. Lots of books exist where the children have a mom and a dad, and no energy is spent explaining why the parents got married - they love each other. It’s as simple as that. So too, for Ricky’s Mom and Meema.

Ricky himself went through a few iterations, but we settled on a design based on the author’s husband as a young boy, the namesake of the character.

The Boy Who Was Too Much Trouble is available for preorder now through July 15th HERE!