New amazing characters are on Hazel's way before the story come to an unespected  end.
For me these are the last five preliminary drawings. Next step will be corrections and colours.

For summer lovers or chilly people.

Many days cold and snowy this winter. It's good to remember that in a year there are hot days too!

Meanwhile...
I like this word that from inside a little rectangle in a picture of comic book has the strong power to remind us that not only is in our sight happens!
So, sketches from 'Hazel Phantasmagoria' for my new portfolio go on.
Meanwhile... I have started a reviewed dummy of my never end children's picture book.

Title, absolutely provisional, is 'Francesco, get yourself ready. It is time to sleep.', and these are the first two spread.

Here I am in the middle of my pencil work from 'Hazel's Phantasmagoria'.
Very soon, I hope, it will be time to complete with colours.

To get better consistence among sketches and to keep picture tale flowing, I have considered as a good thing to keep same characters size in every draw, and it is very small compared with my usual standards.

One more challange is to draw as much as possible ground or floor as if they are looked at from a not too much high parallel point of view. Very interesting and funny, indeed!

That's all.

The way some days are shorter than others to make everything you should do, is very strange indeed!
Lately most of my day are very short!

Anyway, Hazel's adventures in rude Aunt's country house go on and so my work does.

I'm quite satisfy about what I did so far even if some corrections will be inevitable;floors and furnitures, for example, are described filthier than what I sketched!

But on the whole, I think and hope, they look good!

Character design is one of most satisfying part in building a picture. Sometime character is caught at once, some time more schetches are needed!

I'm often the only one who can understand what lines mean in my composition sketches. They are very small!

These were done on a Canson A5  90g sketchpad

And then the final sketch.  After some correction I'll use it for final inking and coloring work. 

This is for sale. Please e-mail me if you are interested.

Pilot H-325 mechanical pencils 0,5mm and Staedtler Mars Micro Carbon Pencil Leads 2B and H on A4 paper

Hazel's Phantasmagoria

'Hazel's Phantasmagoria' by Leander Deeny is definitely a good book to spend some of your free time. Even if you are no more a young adult like me!

I found the italian version in a big store. Actually I was there just to buy some food but the cover by David Roberts attracted my attention and so the book took place in my basket with sausages, vegetables, pasta and wine.

  

Anyway, a pleasant book can often be a good help to design new picture especially if, like me,  you need or simply wish to renew your portfolio.
Pilot H-325 mechanical pencils 0,5mm and Staedtler Mars Micro Carbon Pencil Leads 2B and H on A4 paper


The picture is for sale. Please e-mail me if you are interested.

A Toy for Christmas

This is the way I imagined the shop where the Gianni Rodari tale "A Toy for Christmas" starts. 

The journal of Riccardo - New Series

Very little time to made it this afternoon!!

Ink and watercolour in Daler Rowney Large Sketchbook

The journal of Riccardo - New Series

The journal of Riccardo is back!

Ink and watercolour on Daler Rowney Sketchbook

It's time to sleep.

One of the illustration for my 'It's time to sleep'.

One day a man wakes up, go to the bath-room, looks at himself in the mirror and yells: his nose is not on its place. His face is flat! ('The escaping nose' by Gianni Rodari)
Odd situation, isn't it?

Meet Francesco

Francesco is my favourite character I everytime call for help when I need to visualize on paper any image for my children's book work. He always is kindly free even if he knows he won't the hero of the story! 

I wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Another one from a Gianni Rodari tale

'The blue traffic lights' is the tale by G.Rodari from which I designed the illustration.