Self-Published a Book

[dazzlegas]

Hi there -

I'm mostly on Kirupa to learn more of flash, as my background is on design and illustration. I really appreciate the kind folks here who offer their code, FLAs and help.

Since I can't really contribute much on the Flash front, I thought that I'd at least share what I spend my time doing.

Last year I decided to get my illustrated career going by self-publishing alt-kid's books. My first one, Caught Creatures (http://www.caughtcreatures.com) was published at the tail end of 2005 and I've been promoting it at comic conventions and locally in Phoenix.

Anyway, I just got my second book done, called "KlawBerry: Good Girl, Bad World." It's about a little monster-girl who gets her eye stolen, and her quest to get it back.

Here are a few cruddy photos I took last weekend:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/144/377591299_818d0c0c45.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/124/377592060_db366dbfc7.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/166/377591993_2ac5d88ad1.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/152/377591912_10589800d6.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/128/377591810_827d894010.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/143/377591726_b549ec72a2.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/108/377591201_5dcea438e8.jpg


The art was done in FreehandMX, and then pulled into Photoshop to texture it.

Without sounding like too much of a jerk, I'm really happy how well it turned out, and I'm proud to have gotten another big project done.

I'm trying to do 1 book a year, and so I'm basically on schedule.

Thanks for looking.

Klawberry.com (http://www.klawberry.com)

[Stratification]

Nice style on this. I actually might consider picking up a copy when I've got a few extra bucks laying around. Some of the imagery seems like it gets repeated a lot though (unicorn head, same shading every time. That's a minor issue though, I like the color palette and the fanciful characters a lot though.

[iLikePie]

i agree, looks really nice.

(i also agree that the exactly repeated elements aren't ideal (that pose where shes leaning to one side with the claw out), but again it wouldn't really bother me that much.

i like how you took the photos in shrubbery as well :)

[dazzlegas]

One the biggest inspirations for this book were iconic advertising mascots. (Like those that you might find on cereal boxes or candy wrappers, or painted on the side of old buildings.)

It was important to me to have the character be as "iconic" and uniform as possible... almost like modern hieroglyphics or symbols.

For good or bad, it's why I did it the way that I did and what I'm interested in.

:)

Thanks for the feedback.

[mlk]

looks nice !

not too fond of the bottom of the pages though

did you have to pay anything to get it published ?

[hybrid101]

pretty cool work(especially on freehand:D)

[dazzlegas]

Yes, I had to pay to get it published; it's self-published. (1600 copies)

I do a lot of promotion and selling in-person at conventions, so print on demand is something that doesn't work quite as well for such things. The price per book is much higher than traditionally printed work.

Thanks for having a look.

[dr_vroeg]

Being a freehand guy, I have to commend you on your work :thumbsup:

I can't get past the second pic...it looks like a big phallus...

[samoscratch]

Looks good :)

Did you use lulu.com for Publishing?

[dazzlegas]

"Phallus"... lol!

:}

"Lulu?" Nope, I had it printed.

I wrote a little article (http://steamcrow.com/content/view/176/33/) about self-publishing, and why I didn't choose Lulu.

Lulu is great, but it isn't the best choice for everything.

[ronnie]

Very very nice.