Last year I got a delightful email out of the blue from an American lady called Mrs Duck (for real!) who is starting up a small business making her own recipe of hot and chilli sauces.
She’d come across an illustration I did back in 2006 called Devil Duck which fortuitously was the exact same name she come up with for her sauces, what with them being as hot as Hell and her name being Duck. Makes sense.

She was interested in acquiring the rights to use my illustration on the labels of her sauces but being a fledgeling enterprise had very little spare cash to throw my way in recompense. I agreed with her at the time that she could use the image for a while till she got started then we’d discuss it again.

Yesterday I got another email from her. The time has come where she wants to ‘go live’ with her products and we need again to discuss the purchase of the rights to the image. Now I’m in a bit of a pickle. I know what the going rate is for this kind of thing and I really don’t think she’d go for it. Especially with how weak the dollar is at the moment, if I ask for sensible money in pounds sterling it’s going to be megabucks on her side of the pond.

So do I sell myself short and let her have it for a pittance just to get my artwork seen? or do I hold out for proper money and risk losing the deal altogether? It’s a problem, and no mistake.

All of the posts here older than this one are from my older and now abandoned blog NobbyNobody’s Biromash Notes and have been imported here for the sake of completeness and somewhere to keep them.

Another four tiny teaser thumbnails of biro illustrations from the children’s book that I’m working on at the moment in between other routine biro-art stuff.
These are the illustrations for the pages dealing with the, (from left to right) Starfish, Squirrel, Whale and Ladybird.
There are still many, many more to do but so far I’m pleased with the way things are going. The design of the central character, the Frog has evolved a little as things have progressed so I may have to revisit or even completely re-draw some of the earlier pages at some point.
With a little digital jiggery-pokery it’s possible to just re-draw the bits that need updating then incorporate them into the original biro drawing so it shouldn’t be too much extra work. Still, it’s a learning process and hopefully when it’s done it will be something rather special. Here’s hoping.

Work continues apace with the new biro-art book, but I’m struggling a little with the subject matter.

The problem is I need to draw a fair few different animals but they must meet a series of quite stringent criteria:

• Must have an exclusive or near exclusive diet
• Cannot eat frogs
• Cannot be a creature that frogs eat (flies, worms etc)
• Cannot eat flies or fly-like bugs or things that frogs eat (worms, slugs etc)
• Must be a natural diet not like ‘Dogs eat dogfood’ or ‘Mice eat cheese’

I thought it’d be quite easy to think of lots but having done a few I’m at a loss now.
Here’s a list of ones I’ve done so far or have planned:

• Done:
  • Duck - pondweed
  • Panda - bamboo
  • koala - gum leaves
  • Starfish - shellfish
  • Mole - worms
  • Aardvark - ants/termites
  • Macaw fruit & seeds
  • Whale - krill
  • Ladybird (ladybug) - aphids
  • Marine Iguana - algae
  • Squirrel - nuts
  • Puffin - sand eels
  • Vampire bat - blood
  • Stag Beetle - nothing!
• To do:
  • Polar Bear - seals
  • Penguin - fish
  • Hummingbird - nectar

Any suggestions are very welcome, just send me an email

Here we are at the end of another year.
Another year of doodling with a biro, creating drawings that bring great acclaim but little cash.
I’m very grateful for the fantastic feedback I get for the stuff I do, but I do wonder if it’s at all marketable. After all, with a couple of minor exceptions no-one at all seems to want to pay me to draw for them.

2007 will see the release, by hook or by crook, of my first proper illustrated book. NobbyNobody’s ANThology was mainly an exercise in taking an idea to fruition and to investigate if my illustrations work in book form.
2007’s book will be for children with a simple story illustrated on each page with a full page drawing.
It will follow the adventures of a frog as he explores the world learning about other animals and their eating habits.
The book is designed to be read to a child by an adult and will include some ’stage directions’ indicating to the reader how to act while reading certain sections.

Initially, I will be attempting to offer the finished work for publication via established childrens’ book publishers but ultimately if that comes to naught I will self publish via one of the many services available on the internet.
I doubt I will use Lulu again, because they are expensive, slow and rather limiting on what they can produce. They’re excellent for experiments like ANThology but not cost-effective for the real thing. Plus with them being based in the USA, they do not offer some services to us non-US authors.

Work has already begun on the illustrations for this new project which I will not be publishing as large images on this site or over on Biro-art so that the drawings are new to people when they (hopefully) buy the book.
I will occasionally display thumbs of the pages as they are created, just to show the book’s progress and to keep interest up.
With that in mind, here are a small selection of drawings so far completed…