A run animation for Glorkian Warrior.
Here’s my cat Spandy, asleep on my drawing table, 19 years old. Surrounded by stuff I’m working on. You can see a finished page of the Fungus comic strip I’m drawing for my local weekly paper, a penciled page of that, and a Fungus rough draft. Kinda hidden in the lower right you can see a rough draft of a page for the second Glorkian Warrior graphic novel.
Lots of interesting details on the window sill as well. Han solo in carbonite! A piece of a real shipwreck!
My son, who is generally a reluctant reader, really loves the book Dragon Puncher by James Kochalka. And when I say “love”, I mean the white hot laser focus passion that only a kid on the Autism Spectrum seems able to achieve.
Another thing my son is reluctant to do is write. He’s worked hard with occupational therapists to overcome some fairly intense fine motor skill delays, and after years of effort, is able to write legibly. But he doesn’t like to do it. Ever.
So I was surprised (and thrilled) when he said he wanted to write a letter to the author of Dagon Puncher. He did the whole thing himself, only asking for a bit of help with spelling, an envelope, and a stamp. Then we mailed it off. And more or less forgot about it.
But when we got back from Spring Break vacation the other day, there was a reply letter waiting for him with a hand-drawn picture, stickers, and a fun little map for Kochalka’s other series, Johnny Boo. Now, my son is not given to a lot of outward display of enthusiasm, but if you look in that second picture, you can see his little secret smirk, which is what he does when he’s so excited about something that he can’t stop himself from smiling at least just a little. For those of you unfamiliar with Dragon Puncher, the hero’s weapon of choice is a wooden spoon called “Spoony”. That night, my son took a wooden spoon to bed with him. For me, that says it all.
I don’t know if this is one of those things that sticks with him forever. I hope so. But I tell you what, it’s sticking with me. As a father and as an author. Every time I’m tempted to rush through fan correspondence, I’m going to think of the moment my son opened the letter from his favorite author.
This made my day!
Here’s a video game level designed by my son Oliver, age 5. (Another level he designed back when he was 4 we’re actually using as part of Glorkbot’s Mini-Adventure.)
Glorkbot level. Before and After.
Yesterday I posted an early section from Glorkbot’s Mini Adventure. But Rich of PixelJam says I should post what the same area looks like now so you can see how far the game is coming along. So here are both for direct comparison.
This is some of the early level design I did for Glorkbot’s Mini Adventure. We did use this… in very heavily modified form… but quickly decided that going forward it wasn’t very helpful to design the level in pieces. Since we were creating one single massive level for the game it was better to work on one giant image file than to try to piece different sections together.
This is the 13th and final cover idea for The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza. I like it a lot, but decided it’s not the right one for the book. But… remove the pizza and replace it with Glorkbot (and swap out the approaching aliens with ones from the game) and it might be a good cover for Glorkbot’s Mini-Adventure!
This was my very first sketch for Glorkbot’s Mini Adventure. We stuck pretty closely to this initial sketch… but added to it like crazy.
