Totoro Forest Project

Today is the official announcement of the Totoro Forest Project. It's a fundraising auction to be held at Pixar Animation Studios on September 6th 2008 (tickets will soon be available) featuring original art created by internationally acclaimed artists in the fields of animation, comic books and illustration. The charity was established to raise funds for the Totoro no Furusato Forest Foundation, established by Hayao Miyazaki himself, to ensure the preservation of Sayama forest (aka Totoro Forest) from the threat of urban development.
The event is the brainchild of my friends Dice Tsutsumi and Enrico Casarosa and over 200 artists have donated work. It's amazing to see the amount if inspiration people have generated for this cause. The website is now live so check it out. Not only that but a book of all the art will be available at the time of the show, not to mention an exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco.
The artists that were invited to contribute were asked to draw their own inner Totoro.

Apparently my inner Totoro is a pervert.

Return to France! Part 2

I must say that I've never been anywhere where the people have been as welcoming and generous as the people I've met in France. This was my second time back and I hope for many returns.

Arludik. The show was a wonderful success (still is actually, it will be hanging for the rest of the summer) and the turn out was just as good. Ironically there was a huge group of American students who were studying abroad that showed up. They're part of a group called the Shrunkenheadman Club at San Jose State which is not all that far from where I live. Go figure.





I was lucky enough to see many of the great artists that I met last time as well as meeting a lot more.
Here I am looking less than hip next to these awesome ultra hip Chinese comic book artists. Lu Ming on the far left and Benjamin on the far right.

I was happy to see that the show was well advertised around town too.



One of the most pleasant surprises of the trip (much lesser than getting engaged but still good) was stumbling upon an exhibition of one of my Favorite cartoonists, Kiraz. Wow it was amazing. I wish it was near my house so I could go there for daily inspiration. It's hanging at the Carnavalet Museum in Paris. I'm sure if you live in the area you must know about it already, if not, go. You wont regret it.
even the ads were awesome.


Check out the blog of by beautiful fiancée for more details of the trip, including a way cool drawing demo by Arthur de Pins, and some nifty Raving Rabbids toys from my friend John Banana.

WE'RE ENGAGED!!

My girlfriend Ikumi and I that is, on the Eiffel tower of all places. (That's not my hand in the photo btw)

Life doesn't get any better than this!

Project: Process. Part II

My original idea for the cover was to print a pattern on it and that the registration could shift from copy to copy making each one unique. Turns out the printer couldn't do that, so I wound up doing one solid design. I think I like this better anyway.
Here's the inked cover art.


And here's the full wrap around cover design.


This is the full case (or cover) assembly guide I made for the printer. I tried to make it as detailed as possible so there would be no question about my intentions for the final product.


Shortly after that I received this case mock up demonstrating what the final double foil treatment for the spine would look like.

Project: Process. Part I

So I've got a new book coming out for the San Diego Comic con called Bookplate Betties. It's a collection of all the bookplate pieces I did for my Belle du Jour special editions, and then some. It's not a book I was ever planning to make but the bookplates came out really well and there were a lot of them, so I figured what the heck, it'll make a nifty book.

I'm actually already finished with the book and it's off to the printer. I should have them in my hands a couple weeks before San Diego. I've had some people ask me about self publishing and how I produce a book so I thought I'd show some parts of the process hopefully without getting too boring.

First I decided on my size and page count. I went with 7" x 5 1/2" with 192 pages. I wanted to bind the book with cloth this time and my friend Scott Morse gave me this cool idea to print a pattern or imagery on the cloth.

I did a few rough cover comps to show to my printer and ask if it was possible.
This is what I showed them:



They said that they could do it, but asked me for some art to do a test. I hadn't designed the cover yet so I gave them these pieces that represented the two different directions I was thinking.

Soon I received these printed cloth tests:



I was much happier with the red, which is the way I wound up going.

Soon the printer and I agreed on a budget and I signed a contract committing myself to the project.
After that the printer took the next step and made a dummy book for me. The dummy is a real copy of the book (made with the actual materials) only it's completely blank. This allows you to hold and feel the book to make sure this is what you want and to iron out any mistakes early before the real book production.



Next step, design the cover.

Return to France!

Already! I can hardly believe it. I'll be in Paris for a group show at the Galerie Arludik along with my friends Jennifer Chang, Scott Morse and Enrico Casarosa (well, their work anyway, it looks like I may be the only one to attend in person). The show opens June 24th. I'll post more as it develops.

For now here are a couple pieces I did specially for the show.

Still available.

These two bookplates are still up for grabs.