Unwanted: Donald Trump

I'm not a political person and I don't like to get into political discussions because they often lead to unnecessary disputes.

However, when Donald Trump opens his mouth and spouts vitriol for the sake of getting press (at least one hopes that's the reason), I don't mind throwing in some of my own commentary. See below.

Red Haired Spellbinder

See more of my book illustrations on my website.

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Below are some screen shots of this work in progress:

New Chapter Book: Elephitten

My newest chapter book has been published: Elephitten.

The book is written by Michael Andrew Fox and is the third in a series of books from Petimals Books. The first two books are Dogopotamus and Hamstigator.

The series revolves around a young boy, Coby, who really wants his parents to get him a pet. But he doesn't want anything to do with 'normal' pets, so he goes about inventing his own.

This book was a huge challenge considering the main character is meant to be a cute kitten with the features of an elephant. No cute little kitty nose- instead an elephant's trunk. No adorable paws- instead elephant feet. I went through so many iterations of this character before finally feeling like I got him right.

My daughter seems to think I got it right:

For fun I created an animated GIF of Elephitten:

And here are some additional illustrations from inside the book:

 You can pick up Elephitten HERE.

Hiking Girls Chapter Book Cover

Chapter Book Cover

Here's a shot of the work in progress:

Power Girl Chapter Book Cover

Chapter book cover illustration

Yoga for Kids Wall Art

For the Child Who HAS One of Everything

So many kids love yoga- among other benefits, it teaches them balance, flexibility, focus and confidence.

I wanted to create bright, colorful illustrations that would encourage kids to learn or practice yoga and also look great in their bedrooms, so I posted these and more 8x10 prints on Etsy.

Check out the single pose prints

Also available as a 16 pose poster

You can see these prints and many more in my Etsy shop.

Perdue Chickens and The Truth About Factory Farms

I recently watched a video about a Perdue contracted farmer who decided he'd had enough with the conditions in which Perdue requires he raise his chickens and he wanted the public to finally become aware of how torturous and unnatural factory farms truly are. So he let in some cameras so we could see what it's really like for his chickens.

Although I'm not a vegetarian, I can't help being moved by the video and the stories of the horrible life of these chickens and so I had to create an illustration. What struck me was how taxed their internal organs are due to their "disproportionately large chests" and this condition forces them to spend most of their time on the ground as they are unable to hold up the weight of their bodies.

The video was posted by Compassion in World Farming's Better Chicken Initiative and you can watch it at the BCI link above.

On the Big Screen

My wife and I went to opening night of Avengers: Age of Ultron and were treated to a happy surprise.

About a year ago, I created an animation with Cut to Create for National Amusements' chain of theaters to publicize their Popcorn Club for kids.

You can read my blog post HERE.

The 45 second animation was to air before each (Most? Some?) movie and although we had been to that theater four times in the last year (we don't get out much!) we had yet to see the short.

This time, we were sitting back popping popcorn and waiting for the previews to start when suddenly my animation came on! I'm not sure if my eyes were wider than my mouth as the realization hit me. Holy Moly! It's one thing to work on something on the computer in front of you but to finally see it projected on a huge screen in front of a hundred people? Very satisfying.

And it looked really good.

You can watch it below:

After a short while I shot a couple of pictures as the animation played (a little silly, but I'm sure you understand!).

Mykonos Travel Poster

From time to time I get the chance to create art just for the fun of it and this poster is just such an image. Based on some photos I took when I was in Greece a few years back.

This Mykonos travel poster is available on Etsy.

Hunting Girl Book Cover

Sticky Situation: Note Passing

Illustration for Scholastic News for fourth graders.

Sticky Situation: You're caught in class with a note that you had nothing to do with. What do you do?

Boston's Snowiest Season

Always listen to the Groundhog...

This past weekend it snowed just enough for Boston to beat its previously snowiest winter (107.6" in 1995-1996). Did someone make up the word "snowiest"? Awkward.

ELEPHITTEN animated GIF

I'm working on a new chapter book for Petimals Books called Elephitten (combo of an elephant and a kitten) and I decided to try something new. I created this animated GIF of the title character after reading a tutorial on digitaltrends.com (scroll 1/2 way down) and taking apart someone else's GIF to see how it all works.

How's this for my first try?

By the way, this is also the first look at Elephitten (only the author and my kids have seen him/her). Cute, right? The chapter book will be coming out sometime in May or June. 

Winter Bunny

This illustration started out as a sketch in my sketchbook and ended up as a fun color and texture exercise.

Groundhog Jedi Pilot

Chapter book illustration of a furry Jedi pilot.

Below is where the illustration began. 

Lying in Bed Just Like Brian Williams

Last week, NBC's news anchor, Brian Williams, admitted that his story of being under siege in a helicopter in Iraq in 2003 which prompted a forced landing was not based on fact. Two days ago, Williams decided to step aside from his anchor job for several days.

Here is what I imagine Brian Williams is doing as he takes some time off.

Lying in Bed Just Like Brian WILSON did is a Bare Naked Ladies song about the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson who had a nervous breakdown and stayed in bed for 3 years.

Groundhog Day 2015

Happy Groundhog Day!
This year's theme (for the 3 people in the universe unfamiliar with a trend that has spanned 4 decades so far) is Star Wars and the Groundhog's shadowy nemesis is in the form of Darth Vader.

I've done a number of extra illustrations and sketches this year and you can see them on this blog.

If you'd like to see my Groundhog Day illustrations over the past many years I put together an album on Behance.

Dreading Groundhog Day

Watch this space on Groundhog Day, February 2 for my yearly commemorative illustration.

You can check out the last few years on this blog by clicking HERE.

Groundhog Day Teaser

With Groundhog Day fast approaching, I've been preparing my annual GH card and it's already been sent to the printer (somehow I'm ahead of schedule this year!). I did some extra sketches this year and I thought I'd post them as a teaser for the theme of this year's illustration.

Please drop me a line if you'd like me to mail you a postcard.

You can check out the last few years on this blog by clicking HERE.

Agents of Shield Comic Book

I was going to buy the new Agents of Shield comic for the wife but they got Agent Coulson all wrong. Instead of a square jaw (which makes him look like Captain America's bigger brother) he should have been drawn as the everyman he is. THAT's his appeal. THAT's why they made his character a fanboy.

Unless we get bit by a radioactive spider (and that bite doesn't kill us) we likely will never have any super powers. But we CAN try to be as intelligent, persuasive and observant as Coulson and kick some a$$.

Karate Kids

My son's Saturday morning karate class gives me a chance to get some sketching done. 

Animation for Oilpro.com's Homepage

Oilpro.com is a new social network for the oil and gas industries. What sets them apart from Linked In and Facebook is that you don't have to wade through the noise and posts which are not relevant to you on Oilpro.

The owners of Oilpro contacted us because they were interested in finding a way to show newcomers the benefits of this site to drive conversions.

To that end, Zach of Cut To Create, and I wrote the story and then I created the storyboard and all of the assets (characters, icons, fake kitten poster...) for the animator to put together.

The animation is (currently) on Oilpro's homepage

Pandarantula

The author of Dogopotamus and Hamstigator wrote a new Halloween short story about the main character of his book series and asked me to create an illustration for it. I'm in the middle of illustrating his next book, Elephitten but when I heard the title of the story I couldn't say no.

So here's Pandarantula.
(And check out the story HERE on the Petimals website.)

You can pick up Dogopotamus and Hamstigator on Amazon.

Below is my original sketch. While I was doing it, my 9 year old drew his own version of Pandarantula (with a sword) and it came out great! I'm going to have some competition soon!

Twinventors: Fly Girl

More for Twinventors.

If you'd like this illustration on a postcard just drop me a line at ed (at) edfredned.com.

Bell Bottom Girl

A colored pencil/watercolor sketch

Twinventors: Green Screen

 A new illustration for the chapter book: Twinventors

Sticky Situation: Cheating

An illustration for Scholastic News 4, a weekly news magazine for fourth graders. The section of the magazine where my illustration appears is called Sticky Situation and it depicts a predicament that the kids need to figure out what is the right thing to do. 

In this case, Patrick is cheating off Gwen's science test and although she doesn't want him to fail the class, she knows it's not right.

Here's a shot of the image in progress- before we decided to go monochromatic with the kids in the background:

After this illustration, Scholastic hired me to do another 21 Sticky Situations, so there's more to come!

Popcorn Club Animation

A short time after I designed the 1-2-3 Go Box (Happy Meal) for National Amusements/Showcase Cinemas, the art director contacted me to explore the possibility of creating an animation. They were considering having a short created utilizing the characters from the 1-2-3 Go Box to highlight their Popcorn Club for kids.

A few pages from the animation storyboard

I've been creating animations with production by Zach of Cut to Create for a few years now and the above is one of our latest. Together, Zach and I wrote the story (based on conversations with the client and their goals) and once it was approved I began work on storyboarding and creating the (many, many) characters and backgrounds as well as other assets for the animator.

We produced a three second test animation with Timbuktoons which completely floored me. It just blew my socks off and was immediately approved by the client, and we were on our way!

Getting the theatre background right was a bit of a task. We didn't want to overwhelm the viewer but we also didn't want to shortchange the cinema chain by showing a less than stellar viewing room.

Here's one of the versions (with some characters only partially drawn):

The above felt too stark so we upgraded by widening and adding another row for the final animation:

I considered using photos of the 1-2-3 Go Box for when they parachute down but instead decided to recreate them to look more simplified:

As part of the project, I designed 36 characters for the animation, some of whom were based on characters in the 1-2-3 Go Box and the rest completely new. Here are a number of my faves:

The animation hit theaters in the Summer of 2014 and plays before every movie at theaters offering the Popcorn Club or so I'm told. See it in person here. 

This project then led to me designing and illustrating cardboard standees (6 feet tall, die cut) and posters for display in theater lobbies. More on that soon.

Thanks for reading this far!

See my Youtube channel for more animations.

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I’ve been doing a lot of character development lately and from time to time I show off new characters on my blog. Sometimes they’re black and white and sketchy and other times full color and finished. If you want to see more from this series, just click this “characters” tag. You can also see a collection of characters in my Behance portfolio or on my website.