The Familiars - "Secrets of the Crown" Released!

Recently the new children's novel that I have been busy with drawing and painting late 2010 to Early 2011, has been released now.

You can purchase a copy of it either in your local Chapters, Indigo, Borders, or Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

On Amazon.com, you can purchase it as a hardcover book or an e-book on kindle.

After illustrating the first book, the adventure continues in book two of 'The Familiars - Secrets of the Crown'. The book will be a continuation of the first book.

When human magic disappears suddenly from Vastia, it falls on the familiars, Aldwyn the telekinetic cat, Skylar the know-it-all blue, jay, and Gilbert the gullible tree frog--to find the Crown of the Snow Leopard, an ancient relic that can reverse the curse. They learn that the only way to do this is by following in the purple paw prints of Aldwyn's father, who'd gone missing while searching for the Crown years earlier. This magical spirit trail extends into the Beyond, where our heroes encounter new enemies and danger, while Aldwyn learns about his mysterious past.

Full of high-flying adventure and heartwarming friendships, SECRETS OF THE CROWN shows how great it is to be familiar with The Familiars!

Here are a selected few illustrations that I worked on - all of them were done traditionally, in total I have completed about 20 illustrations for the book:









Follow @the_familiars on twitter for more future updates on the series.

How Nostalgic

Heres a digital painting I did in Photoshop recently. I posted a rougher version few months ago, but recently I had some inspiration to finish it. So here it is.

Its of my childhood...quite nostalgic. I grew up with these characters, as with many of you, probably..

It was fun to do this, also thanks to everyone who bought a print of this at AX 2008 this year.












Here's a little animated gif of the progress from start to finish.

Little Red Wolf Hood Sketch

Heres a sketch i finished and got approved by Harvey..gonna try to paint this with oils on wood i think as he suggested. Hopefully it turns out good so i can use this piece maybe for my year end show. Hmm and still need some ideas for decorative patterns in this piece..

Nostalgic Bus Stop

Been very very busy. Heres something new i did..if anyone remembers the classic totoro scene..This is inspired by it. This is a painting i am working on for Visual Narrative for Blair..its about my childhood dream. haha. Gonna be a fun piece to paint..here is the rough sketch and the first tonal, still need to work on lighting a bit more.

Hopefully i can finish this soon and post up the final.

Wish you were here

Title: Wish you were here
Drawing by Bobby Chiu (http://www.imaginismstudios.com)
Painting by Me

Here's a collaboration piece I did with Bobby Chiu this summer.

It was a great project and it was lots of fun to work on it.
This is for an upcoming magazine cover for Creation Engine. It is also in Imaginism Studio's upcoming book 'Dragon Sketches'. Its gonna be a really great and exciting book, so go to their site and check it out!

Here are some close ups of the image.



























































Hope you like it!

Working on a little comic thing..it has only 4 panels to tell a quick joke/story/etc. so this is panel 4...more to come..soon.