Strawberry Dough Season's Sweetings: Summer Bliss

Since this artist and this song has been buzzing around my head and iPod for months, allow me to share it with you. Play it while reading this post:

 

 

Paul Hardcastle, a multi- instrumentalist jazz musician from Britain, provided me with one of the many sounds I've used as a sugar glider drawing playlist for the past few months. The hotly awaited season of summer is about to arrive here in the states, and what perfect way to ring it in but with the release of Strawberry Dough Season's Sweetings: Summer!! It is now available for purchase on my shop.



 

 

 

I remember sharing this cover art for the final season for this series a month ago as a penciled sketch on my Instagram page once Spring was completed. From the very start of my character choices for the first Strawberry Dough, many readers were shocked at the omission of certain obvious animals native to the Australian and New Zealand lands. At the time, they didn't fit the comics I drew out, so I left it to the Winds of Fate -again- to remind me when was the perfect time to unleash the two new characters onto the Alpine Outback

 

Let's start this preview with a bright first page, shall we?!

 

 

I have to give a ton of credit to the Aussie Instagrammers out there for providing me with such vast landscapes and wonderful native birds to draw for this latest comic's intro! Of course, such dazzling décor would be disrupted by-



 

FIRECRACKERS!! Set off by a mischievous... Platypus... 

 

Before I continue, I must state the context of this page. Being an animal lover since age five, I've done my best to educate others on what exactly ticks certain creatures off. I felt that it was necessary to warn others of the use of certain objects that can cause damage. In this case, fireworks and firecrackers frighten the living daylights out of many animals. While this was used for comedic effect for a plot point, make no mistake: the way those birds reacted is VERY similar to how your dog, cat, guinea pig or rabbit would react if you took them out for a 4th of July celebration. They are safe indoors!

 

Now, onto why Platypus exists.

 

 

With the summer season hitting the Alpine Outback, the ever- so mythical Northeast region begins to bloom in popularity the way Kiwi and Dingo shared with the others during Spring. Platypus acts as the herald for the region, carrying out acts of naughtiness to fend other animals off until his -gulps- leader says to let them in.

 

 

He was a character long in development to appear in a book! Thanks to the platypus being an unusual creature to zoological standards -duck- billed, beaver- tailed, otter- bodied-, his overall design will make for a great sticker to add to the series collection! As seen above, his leader I'll speak of at the end. 

 

One joy I had while finishing this book was reuniting Squishy and the Alpine crew with Kiwi and her kiwifruit to see the side effects and wonder of their full journey unfolding!  

 

Note to self: Bandicoot can't avoid thunderstorms easier than trees.

Since this IS the ending book to the current Strawberry Dough series, there has to be cap- offs to things that have happened in the previous seasons. Case in point: Goanna still exists-

 

And Bilby arrives with Dingo! Once a month passes, I'll have a blogpost detailing exactly what I was going through at the time I started this book and finished it. In a weird philosophical way, Summer is the encapsulation of my latest transition in the Bay Area for the past two months. Much like I've described in Brooklyn By The Bay, it's a change I saw coming.

Much like how Kangaroo makes her grand entrance in the book!

 

 

 

Thank you all for reading, sharing and supporting my books! I'll be back to talk about something more key to my career... on Monday.

Strawberry Dough: Spring Awakens...

And so have I on this blazing Monday in the Bay Area! So, let's get right down to it. From January to April, my day-to-day life became filled with longer shifts at both jobs, possible job offers in the works that pertains to my career path (!!!!!), and of course, art deprived elementary school kids who need to release that inner Rembrandt and Jack Kirby. You would think that I'd push back Squishy's latest for a few more weeks down the road once my time started freeing up, but my watercolor pencils and Tuesday café hops weren't letting me up.

Strawberry Dough Season's Sweetings: Spring has finally come to its imminent completion last Tuesday and boy, has it been a topsy-turvy three months! Originally intended to get done a week before the spring season started, Spring brings us to the third of four seasons in the Alpine Outback and if any of you read (let alone peeked) into the Winter book, you'd know that things got a tad funkier and experimental with the comedic tone and character development.

This book also includes the return of the oddball of the Outback posse, Echidna!!!



Many of my readers asked why did I have to stick with keeping Echidna out of the Winter book despite his hibernation habits. A few of them felt that had he been there, the encounter with Goanna and Bilby wouldn't have even happened near Squishy and Co. since he's second only to Hedgehog as the most practical to keeping his social circle in check.

That's why I wanted him out! Echidna was also the one character I decided to give a slight design overhaul to thanks to his absence. He now dons four sharp nails varying in size on each of his feet, true to how the echidna's anatomy works in reality. And yet, he's not the only focus of a returning or new character. That special award goes to-

Kiwi! And she was designed with a kiwifruit in mind! The kiwi bird has always been a species of birds that particularly intrigued me since I was in the second grade. One thing I noticed while downing many an iced chocolate chai latte and designing at the same time is that a kiwi bird's feathering comes off looking very fur-like. The final character visual above shows Kiwi in her golden brown-on-lime green glory after testing colors all throughout February and even before anyone knew of the Spring book's existence, people were in LOVE with this character.  



And rightfully so! In Spring, Kiwi's role is given gravity once Echidna figures out that the very curious bird carries around slices of kiwifruit for a daily dose of vitamin C that keeps her legs and eyes awake daily. Of course, this gives Echidna the bright idea to bring Squishy to her for further dietary needs and training! It's... not easy, though.

One lesson I definitely took from Winter came from one student's review of it: 'I like that there's drama with the comedy now!' In other words, I created a continuity with a series of short comic strips that could've just been one-shots.

So despite having Alaok take Hedgehog and Wombat away for a while in a couple of pages for an intense yoga session-

Or Goanna hunting down Bilby in the heat of the night-

Remember that it can all be taken as a one complete story, or a serialized manual to friendships and survival of the animal kingdom!









Strawberry Dough Season's Sweetings: Spring was released on the Blue Aura Oasis site on April 15th, and will come with a free Kiwi sticker with orders and purchases before the summer hits! Thanks for reading and sharing this post!

Oh, and speaking of... Summer-



Try guessing THOSE animals, why dontcha!

I Heart Sol

It all started with a simple task: a certain date named St. Valentine's Day is upon us and I figured it'd be a fun idea to draw a couple of postcards based on SolForce. The only two I thought of were Geraldine and A.C. As I fleshed out the compositions more, something became obvious to me; they were both drinking their favorite beverages. Geraldine sticks to her rabbit inhibitions and downs some carrot juice on her way from the farmer's market, while A.C. smirks after buying his first (out of five) latte macchiato's within his workday. 

 

Here's a secret: I pictured A.C. with a Kojak- esque voice in the colored version. 'Who loves ya, baby?'

 

These two pieces led to six more card designs with RaiStar Twinkle, John Clue, Martha Clue, Revenda Delgatta, Stephanie Monroe, and Essa and Aamoco Gerbil with some form of their favorite food or beverage drinks. This was the purest opportunity to test out a marketing plan that can reach all year round instead of only February. I titled it I Heart Sol! 

 

 

The official logo!



 

Without further ado, here are the original eight chosen for this test!

 



 

Ceasar 'A.C.' Southermire and a Latte Macchiato

 

Geraldine Archer and Carrot Juice

 

John Clue and a Martini

 

Martha Clue and Lemonade

 

RaiStar Twinkle and Cherries (lots of them)

 

Revenda Delgatta, Milk and a Mambo Dancing Gingerbread Mouse 

 

Stephanie Monroe and Mint Ice Cream Cake

 

 

Essa and Aamoco Gerbil and a Bowl of Cereal

 

 

One day over the week, I'll make these available as a package to order! Seeing them on a screen is great, but physical postcards with cartoon characters loving food is too tempting to pass up on.

 

Till then, have a great week and stay Sol-ful!