Thought I’d share a few pieces of art I’ve done semi-recently since I don’t get to share much from the projects I’m working on.

This is a painting I did for my friend Briana, who requested a fairy painting involving honey bees.

I made my editor Connie a HAPPYFACE painting for Christmas when we’d finished up that book so I had to do a new one for WINTER TOWN! Connie is on the left, giggling at Evan’s misfortune.

Here’s a promotional piece of art I did for the FOUR HATS game. It’s an iOS/app store game but it’s still good to have “box art” for any articles or reviews that may want more than a screenshot to show. I designed it so I could have it go length-wise or across.

Speaking of FOUR HATS, it’s nice to finally be doing a project I can actually openly talk about and share art and experiences from! Make sure to check out/ bookmark/ RSS the Taco Graveyard site, which we’ve been updating frequently. Taco Graveyard is a game development company comprised of myself, and my friend Sal, an awesome programmer. We plan to release a bunch of games this year and have some big ideas in mind!

I make lists pretty much constantly of all the things I need to do. I noticed for about a month every weekend I intend to finish up this one small chunk of work on my third book and every week it gets bumped for other things. Not good. Anyway, here’s how my week was planned out, and how it actually panned out.

Fri

Intended: Day: Go to the mall to write – Blogs.
Night- write out, Gretchen short story edits and finish blogs.

DID: Did write a series of blogs, my iPod broke. Ended up getting new iPod and spent a lot of time organizing music files and rebuilding playlists.
Did write out at night, ended up cleaning up Book 3 notes, did not get to Gretchen Edits.

Sat

Intended: Four Hats Press materials

DID: Did write Four Hats press materials. Had evening plans and then spent more time organizing music.

Sun

Intended: Edit Book 3 character bios, chapter summaries, mission statement

DID: Worked on the Gretchen edits. Did not get to any of the book 3 stuff. Watched Golden Globes.

Mon (off from work)

Intended: Finish up Gretchen, Blogs, Four Hats Press, Book 3 character bios, chapter summaries and mission statement. Basically I had the day free, just make sure I did what I meant to do Fri-Sun.

DID: Gretchen, Blogs and Press were done. Did chores, went on a hike, evening got away from me, BUT – iPod ready to go! Sorry Book 3.

NEW LIST – back to work, reorganized, made a new list.

Tues

Intended: Needed assets for Four Hats, title screen, end screen

DID: New assets finished. Did title screen and drew pretty cool end screen. Success!

Wed

Intended: Edit Book 3 character bios, chapter summaries, mission statement. Let’s get Book 3 moving already!

DID: Cooked, cleaned, played around with photoshop brushes. Evening escaped me.

Thurs

Intended: Work on new game concept art at friend’s house.

DID: Decided Four Hats needed promo art, and penciled image for that instead.

Fri

Intended: Write out, Book 3 stuff

DID: Normal writing place was packed full of teenagers!! Went home and worked on promo Four Hats art instead.

What we learned: Book 3 is the easiest thing to put off. Things do get done eventually, but rarely as fast as I intend or in the right order

It’s time for everyone’s favorite blog post – the NEW YEARS POST!

As a creative dude-meister this is always a good time to take inventory of all my various projects, look back on what I accomplished, what’s being worked on, what’s on the burner.

Of course the big thing for 2011 was WINTER TOWN. At the start of the year I was still doing some revisions, working on art. By spring the advance copies were storming the nation. And in late fall the reviews started to trickle in and now it’s in stores, closing out my second book! You can read my other blog posts to read some reviews and accolades of that one.

So the assumption would be I spent summer and fall working on a third book, and that’s partially accurate. It always takes me a bit to figure out exactly what I want to do for a next book, and I certainly went through a few ideas before landing on the one I’m working on now. I’m having a hard time currently trying to get a few minutes to actually work on it, though, so I can’t say I’m powering through it with no problem. I’ve been sick for over a week now, I had a speech and signing before that, holiday things to do. I’ve been very busy and running around non-stop it seems. That said, Book 3 is a big goal for 2012. I’d like to have a contract and a solid outline and chunk of the book done by midyear. I’d like to spend the latter half of the year finishing it up.

Another thing I was doing this year was working on an iPhone game as “TACO GRAVEYARD” with my friend Sal doing the programming. We ended up with one massive game that’s about a third done so far, though the hardest part is designing the whole thing. Hopefully the next 2/3rds will move along faster. We also have a demo game called THE FOUR HATS that we are currently expanding into a full game with a deadline of finishing it within the month. So these things are fun and rewarding but add to the slow production time on my next book. Finishing the primary game and FOUR HATS are immediate 2012 goals and we have 5 other ideas on the backburner for games too.

Personal goals include getting in better shape, budgeting my time better so juggling these projects doesn’t kill me, and the big goal is to make enough money to do this stuff full time. It’s a hard jump to make but it’s always been my goal. If I continue to get Happyface royalties, if Winter Town starts making royalties, if I can get a few games on the app store, if I can sell this third book, who knows? Maybe 2012 will be a special year.

Goodness gracious, that’s what I say! It’s been a week and I’m still trying to gather thoughts on the Ludum Dare project. This is a project Sal and I as Taco Graveyard did – the goal is to make a full video game in a weekend. It was definitely a success. Our primary game project has gone on for over half a year now and it’s still far from finished. Having a fun and addictive game in a weekend is crazy.

The concept: The Four Hats in “Room to Roam”: Rockstars have it hard. Millions of adoring fans, mountains of cash, and no alone time. How is a musician supposed to write new music when chased by the paparazzi or the hordes of adoring fans? In order to find the solitude that you crave and unlock your inner muse, you must outrun fans and make your way to the studio. Don’t get caught by the paparazzi on your way there or your creative energy will be sapped dry.

You can read Sal’s summary of the whole weekend and see some more screenshots here.

As for my thoughts, I think a weird thing happens when you have such a sturdy deadline or goal like that. We probably could have tossed the idea of The Four Hats around at any other time and spent a night thinking up ideas, a week passing emails on how to best accomplish them. A few hours a night working on any one mechanic or art asset. But when you say “I want to have something we can call a game in three days,” you just do it. That was the biggest appeal in doing the project. It’s just too easy to procrastinate, or say “when we have time,” or “after this project.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, and that was part of the excitement. I like the fact that we didn’t know what it was ahead of time. There was a slight urge to retrofit one of our other game ideas into the topic but starting from scratch was creatively rewarding. And when we got the topic, “alone,” we really didn’t have anything that fit it. A good hour was spent tossing around ideas – not all bad ones – but none of them felt like something I wanted our first public project to be. Maybe we could have come up with some kind of ghost story thing but I wasn’t sure it was going to feel like “Taco Graveyard.” And somehow I knew when we hit it, we’d know.

The Four Hats was definitely it, and I knew it from the second the idea was brought up, we had to do it – if not that weekend, then sometime. The idea was funny, it worked well to my strong suit in cartooning, and it felt personal to us. The characters are even drawn as our music guy, sal, myself, and sal’s girlfriend Cori. I don’t think I explained where The Four Hats actually came from to Sal until after we finished the game. Their original appearance was in a photo back in 2007 – I was working on the tenth issue of EMO BOY, and Emo Boy and Maxine were going to walk around a record store. At a party at Cori’s house we made a bunch of fake band posters – The Four Hats being one of the bands, each of us holding a random instrument and wearing a different type of hat. Who knew they’d star in their own video game years later?

I knew the idea was good and I was having fun making the assets but honestly, right up until I left on Sunday, the game still consisted of this cloud far off behind our character as he walked around jumping over mailboxes. It was SOMETHING, just maybe not…. fun. Sal left Monday open for level building, but I still didn’t see it. So you can jump on some building tops, it’s still too simple. When I started playing though, it wasn’t simple – it was challenging! It turned out TOO challenging at first as my 4S had something going on that made the crowd too fast. Even when I knew it was IMPOSSIBLE to get past halfway, I kept playing. Sal fixed it for me and by then I’d had half the level memorized. From there I did pretty good and can beat it easily now – it’s that old school play and learn the level mechanic – but I still keep playing. It’s one level. But you get into it, you kinda live in the level, with the bright colors and fun music. I think we could make a whole game for no other reason than to hear more songs from Toph/Negapixel/Four Hats.

We’re going to do a few more levels for a light version and ultimately a full game with this – and we fully intend for it to take FAR LESS TIME than our “primary” game. That’s part of the beauty of the game too, it’s fun but simple.

I can only imagine we’ll have more game-making weekends in our future. It was too productive and fun not to.

Last Wednesday I had a book release party for WINTER TOWN at RJ Julia’s in my hometown of Madison, CT – my second talk and signing there.

Despite a week or so of nerves leading up to it, it went well. Mid-December and mid-week made it tough for people to come out but there was a good bunch of people there, friends, family, a few teachers and an assistant at Little, Brown. The last time I spoke there was for the HAPPYFACE release and I wasn’t prepared for the long speech I ended up making – I had planned for 5 minutes and was told to aim for 30. This time I was well prepared! I brought a bunch of art and my sketchbooks and went over every angle of the project. There were plenty of questions and I signed a bunch of books so I’m gonna call it a success! Now I just need some more places to wear my christmas vest.

WINTER TOWN IS OUT, people! RUN to your local bookseller and get thyself a copy! Here’s a roundup of some reviews that have popped up in the last week or two!

WINTER TOWN is a book of the month for teen books at Amazon!

Figment enjoyed it, though not as much as HAPPYFACE.

365 Days of Reading gives it 5/5!

Eve’s Fan Garden is doing a WINTER TOWN week as it’s their book of the week, I did some stuff for the site so check it out all week! They’re also doing a book giveaway!

The Contemps are laughing out loud and shedding tears!

Crowding The Book Truck loved the inside as much as the outside!

Owl Tell You All About It is a cute site name and Laura has been vocal about her love of Winter Town since she got the arc this summer!

Angel at Mermaid Vision Books says WINTER TOWN will charm every reader!

I wrote this article on personal story-writing for teenreads.

Thanks for talking up the book, everyone!

I’ll be doing a book signing and talk at RJ JULIA’S booksellers in Madison CT if you’re around Wednesday the 14th. It’s at 7pm – give RJ’s a call at (203) 245-3959 to RSVP!

Also keep up with my iphone game project posts over here!

Here’s a quick blog post – anyone that knows me knows I love trying out new sketchbooks, trying to find just the right brightness, smoothness of paper, just the right aesthetic presentation. I found something kinda cool.

Has anyone heard of “eeboo’s”? Apparently they’re supposed to be for children – I found that at my local Blick’s art store in the kid’s section for like 2 bucks per sketchpad. I looked online at amazon.com and most of the comments are from mothers saying how much their kids like drawing in them. But here’s the thing, the paper is just the right thickness for a sketchbook – not too thick and sturdy, but not as thin as marker paper or anything either. It’s smooth, bright, spiral-bound… it’s the perfect sketchbook for something that you CAN draw something really nice on but don’t feel too guilty just doodling or jotting ideas down on either. I’ve been using them as I work on my iPhone game for art and concepts and I just love them. I bought a whole bunch. On amazon they’re like 6-10 bucks but definitely worth it!

Hey ho everyone! It’s time, WINTER TOWN should be rolling out any day now so keep an eye out for it in stores! I have my copies, it looks great!

Here’s a few pictures:

Here’s the Publisher’s Weekly review:

Childhood friends Lucy and Evan have been close for years, but when Lucy’s parents divorce and she moves with her mother to Georgia, a full year goes by before Lucy returns to their New England hometown at Christmas. When she arrives, she has dyed black hair and a nose piercing, and Evan notices she is acting “moodier and quiet, and dare he say, emo.” Evan is concerned for her and also increasingly uncertain about his own life’s direction after he graduates from high school. During a two-week vacation, Lucy and Evan talk, argue, and draw comics as they each try to figure out what they want in life and from each other. As in Happy-face, Emond’s artwork plays a big role in his storytelling, shifting between chilly scenes of Christmas in the suburbs and a funny fantasy/adventure comic Evan creates, a cross between Peanuts and Bone. Though there are many fun moments, sharply observed interactions, and smart insights along the way, the overall vibe is moody and pensive, as Lucy and Evan try to find their way and handle the pressures coming at them from every angle.

AND, don’t go yet – if you’re in or around CT on December the 14th, it’s a Wednesday, I’ll be doing a talk and signing at RJ Julia’s, it promises to be both rip and roaring. More details on the facebook event page here.