Clash of the Classics Updates!

We are so close to finishing this book and getting it off to the printers! And being the middle of such creative chaos is amazing but also becomes such the focus that everything else kinda gets forgotten...

So here are some updated WIP files to take a look at from the upcoming collaborative art book Clash of the Classics -

Lesley Vamos is taking us to the moors of Scotland with the deductive duo of Mister Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson from the classic Hound of the Baskervilles. Last week, we had her rough sketch so here are some of her first color passes.

Early on, we posted a rough sketch of Beowolf and the Grendel about to do battle as drawn by Ben Risbeck. Here's some more WIP sketchery which is fascinating to look at because at some point, Ben decided to change up the look of the Grendel from a more Viking-esque looking creature to its current creepy and emaciated form...

One of the new contributors to the book is children's book illustrator Barbara Kolberg. She's bringing some whimsy to the book in the form of illustrating Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Check out more of her work by following the link as well as these awesome sketches.

Right now, it looks like the book with have 50 amazing illustration by 45+ illustrator from all over the globe. Be sure to stay tuned to see more WIP pics and hear updates on the books and events where the new book will be. Thanks! Have a great weekend!!

Clash of the Classics Update!

Good Morning Everyone!

Well, the Festival of Books was a BLAST! Sharing our booth with the Muertoons crew was, as always, such fun! For our 1st time participating in the event, it went very, very well. We have some things we would have liked to see better but Lucy, Rosita and their pals were more than well-received and that's all that really matters. So, you can plan on seeing Tiki Machine back there next year for sure!

But enough reflection! On to the new art! This year's book is looking so awesome, it might blow your mind or melt your face. All the talent involved are absolutely awe-inspiring. As of right now, 27 of the 50 illustrations are in and I'm already prepping the file to go to the printer. Exciting!!

Last week we showed you some rough sketches and works-in-progress images from a couple of the artists. Let's start off with some updated sketches from Mary Bellamy and François Gomes, who were featured last week, and then show off some new stuff. Shall we?

Mary Bellamy chose a tale of jealousy and sorcery locked in battle against true love written by The Brothers Grimm called Jorinda and Jorindel. It's about a couple very much in love who stray too close to a witch's tower, resulting in Jorinda being turned into a nightingale. Jorindel had a dream about a flower that could break the curse and restore his love to her human form. Not to have too much of a spoiler here, but he finds the flower, confronts the witch, defeats her and true love conquers all. Exhilarating!

François Gomes is taking us to a forbidden island full of science experiments gone wrong in H.G. Well's classic The Island of Doctor Moreau. Last week, his sketches showed us some of the faces of the creatures living on the island. Here's more of his progress as he moved to inking his pencils.

Another returning artist to our collaborative process is Austrailian illustrator Lesley Vamos. Lesley was responsible for the wonderful Davy Crocket, King of the Wild Frontier from last years Illustrated Legends of the Old West and has chosen to illustrate one of the world's greatest detectives from literature, Mr. Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic The Hound of the Baskervilles. She's bringing come Scottish Moors-inspired mood to this year's Clash of the Classics!

One of the exciting new artists to join our project is illustrator extraordinaire David Barneda. David has done some amazing work for the likes of Random House, The Motion Picture Association of America as well as loads of other companies. And he has chosen to take us to merry old England to ride alongside The Black Arrow. Written by Robert Louis Stevenson, it's a tale set during The War of the Roses and is full of intrigue, murder, revenge, banditry and excitement! Check out his sweet roughs!

Well, that's it for today. We'll have more progress images as well as new art next week. See you then! Have a great week!

L.A. Times Festival of Books!

C'mon by the USC campus here in Southern California to participate in the Festival of Books, put on by The L.A. Times. It's free and it's all weekend with loads of activities for the whole family! Lucy and I will be at Booth 534 with our good friends Eric and Erich from Muertoons. Support Do-It-Yourself self-publishers and creators by picking up copies of our books. I'll have Lucy as well as all three art books we made to date. It'll be SO much fun!!

Saturday - event opens at 10am and goes until 6pm

Sunday - event opens at 10am and goes until 5pm

See y'all there!!

Clash of the Classics Update

Well, we are well into the production groove and our new art book is shaping up rather nicely. We are on track to have the most collaborative illustrators ever in one of our art books; it looks like this year, we will have 50 illustrators for 50 illustrations from every corner of the globe. And every single piece is being done by an amazing artists representing almost every facet of the artist community. It is very exciting!

Last week, we started off the official announcement by showcasing images of the WIP roughs some of the artists were so kind to send our way. They included a couple of the artists who have contributed to our previous art books, like Travis Hanson and his illustration based on the H.G. Wells sci-fi novel, The Time Machine. Here is Travis's inked version to the rough pencil sketch we posted last week.

As well as a first peek at returning artist/friend François Gomes, a superbly talented French comic book artist. François, like Travis, is joining forces with the Father of Science Fiction, Mr H.G. Wells and taking us to The Island of Doctor Moreau by way of his amazing imagination!

And joining us for the first time are lots of new artists whom we met at conventions as well as through Twitter and Facebook. Artists like Alaskan illustrator and pre-vis designer Lucas Elliott, who is as nice as he is talented. (Call me biased due to our shared loved of glorious man beards...) Lucas has tackled the challenge of interpreting William Shakespeare for our book. Yup, that's right, the Bard will be represented in glorious illustrated manner as Lucas puts us in the middle of MacBeth's encounter with the Three Witches. Check out the rough -

And lastly, for this week anyway, we have animation and comic book artist Mary Bellamy, who has plied her great talents for Titmouse Studios as well as self published a couple of her own series (Faux Facts and Ah Heck!) and teamed up with Girls Drawin' Girls for events and the wonderful Womanthology Project. We are very excited she wanted to join us this year! She's illustrating a tale from The Brothers Grimm called Jorinda and Jorindel that has true love, magic, an evil shape-shifting witch and an epic battle. Check it the rough -

We hope you enjoyed this weeks little sliver of what we're currently putting together. Thanks for dropping by. Be sure to come back next week and see more from Clash of the Classics, we've got plenty to showcase! We'll be sure to show the continuing progress of a couple of the roughs shown here today as well as new art. Oh yeah!!

Special Announcement! New Art Book!!

We finally get to make an official announcement! We here at Tiki Machine have been hinting about this on Twitter and Facebook but could only tease. Now, it's official, we have a new art book in the works. And this year's theme could be the best yet! Having tread previously into territory inhabited by folkloric monsters, mythological deities and true-to-life participants of the American Wild West, we all decided it was time to step into the pages of our favorite stories from classic literature. This year we have many returning artists from the previous books and loads of new artists involved in bringing to illustrative life classic battles of good versus evil. A Clash of the Classics if you will. It seriously is shaping up to be the best collaborative art book yet!

Right now, we are all still drawing our interpretations of whatever books we've chosen. Since the subject matter is subjective, the illustrations reflect that. Some of the books chosen don't have a clearly defined hero/villain structure which makes the illustrations even more amazing. Here are some rough designs from returning and new-to-the-Tiki-Machine-family with their chosen books which should give you a wonderful idea of what the new book will "taste" like.

We are shooting for a San Diego Comic Con release and are currently on track to have that happen. We talked with the printers last week and are on track to have everything turned at the end of this month. We're sorry it took so long to make the announcement but you all can look forward to seeing roughs and WIP sketches and even glimpses of finished pieces as we wait for the final books to come in. But enough talk, let's look at some roughs!

Some of the returning artists to the book include:

Travis Hanson has chosen to illustrate the H.G. Wells classic sci-fi The Time Machine and put us alongside the Time Traveller and his battle with the sub-terreaneanen Morlocks.

Bryce Collins decided to take on the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving's classic The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and brings us along for the ride. In these sketches, he working out how everybody is going to look.

Ben Risbeck felt inspired to take us way back and show us, in albeit rough sketch-form, the epic battle of Beowulf versus the Grendel from the ancient, epic poem Beowulf.

And we are more than please to introduce some new artists and friends like:

Tim Beard has teamed up with Edgar Allan Poe to introduce us to the story of Ligeia, love and the battle of life versus death and resurrection/rebirth.

Jessika von Innerebner and Jules Verne will take us under the sea, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to bring us face-t-face with the monsters of the deep as it's man versus nature in this classic.

Blythe Russo has cast off brought us along aboard to join Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins as they search for pirate booty in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale Treasure Island.

See? Lots of fantastic work already funneling in to us here at Tiki Machine with what looks like the promise of a great art book. Stay tuned for rough sketches and updated work-in-progress sketches as we enjoy our own journey into the classics! And *spoiler alert* some of the roughs change. Wha-what?! As much as we can, we'll continue to show you the process of not only putting a book together with some VERY talented artists but the process of how the final illustrations came to be. It's gonna be pretty sweet!

ps - some of the contributing artists have already posted their final pieces so be on the lookout for the goodness on their personal sites, blogs, Twitter and Facebook accounts!

WonderCon 2013

Tiki Machine will be at WonderCon 2013 in the Anaheim Convention Center this weekend! And I will be sharing Booth #1026 with 3 collaborators who, alongside Monster Mythos, Deus Libris and Illustrated Legends of the Old West, will have their own amazing personal works. Including but not limited to sketchbooks, sketch cards, magnets, prints, posters and the like.

I (Mike Collins) will be there with The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy, all three collaborative art books and several prints and posters of my personal work.

Ben Risbeck will be unveiling some fun personal fan art illustrations along with his kid's book character Ollie 008, a sneak-peek at his penciled pages for The SteamWorld Chronicles graphic novel and may or may not be wearing pants!

Brianne Drouhard will have copies of her children's book Billie the Unicorn and loads of great sketch cards, copies of her sketchbook and might even take commissions for the right price. Maybe. Don't quote me on that...

Erich Haeger makes up 1/2 of the Muertoons crew and will have lots of personal illustrations (on aluminum, acrylic glass and really nice paper) side-by-side with his Day of the Dead children's book Rosita Y Conchita.

Our weekend schedule is:

MARCH 29-31, 2013

Anaheim Convention Center

800 W. Katella Ave.,

Anaheim, CA 92802

Friday: 12:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Saturday: 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM

Sunday: 11:00 AM - 5:00PM

C'mon by, say hi and chit-chat with us about various nerd-approved subjects and help support the DIY/Creator-Owned movement. You won't be disappointed!

Emerald City Comic Con 2013

Hey there everybody!! It's been a long while now hasn't it? Sorry about that. The holidays and the new year kind of knocked us about but the major news is that Tiki Machine has another little mascot. Deb and I welcomed Li'l Tiki aka Joss to our home one month ago.  So, we find ourselves way more busy than before and the blog has suffered because of it. But we come bearing good, nay, great news!

We will be in the Pacific Northwest this weekend exhibiting in Seattle at the Emerald City ComiCon alongside our pals from Muertoons.  You can find us at Booth 413 inside the Washington State Convention Center all weekend. It kinda came on last minute and we're honored to be a part of this show.  Erich Haeger and myself will be manning the booth between the two of us, so feel free to swing on by, say hi and support our efforts at self-publishing children's books.  Haeger will be selling prints of his artwork as well as copies of Rosita Y Conchita and I'll have some fun fan art prints alongside the three art books (Monster Mythos, Deus Libris and Illustrated Legends of the Old West) and The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy.

We also got confirmation of our participating in the WonderCon event in Anaheim as well as the L.A. Times Festival of Books and the Phoenix Comic Con too, so you'll need to stay-tuned here for all the details.  We've already started working on this year's collaborative art book and will be announcing the theme in the coming weeks.

Loads of things going on and we're hoping to get back on track here on the blog as well as updating the website.  So please keep coming back.  Thanks and we'll see you this weekend iff'n you find yourself in Seattle!! Thanks