Surfacing...

Claw's Submarine just after surfacing

The picture book I am currently working on, 'The Treasure of Captain Claw' is very near completion now. I made an older post showing a couple of sketches from the book but as I am close (I hope) to signing this one off I thought I'd post some more pieces from this project.


The sketch above is a rough for the cover which has just been approved. It's inspiration comes from an old 'Boy's Own' type annual cover. I'll also be doing the hand-lettering on this which I always prefer...rather than using existing fonts etc. I've just been told to remove the skull & crossbones from the flag as it might hamper foreign edition sales. That's a real shame as having Pirates without skull & crossbones is like having Cowboys and Indians without six-shooters and tomahawks. Still...mustn't offend anyone...

I think I'm going to make up a symbol which hopefully will be deemed as less offensive but still look 'piratey'.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to doing that one in colour.

The other black and white sketch above was an earlier version and featured an underwater view of the sub. I was keen to keep the submarine from view until we see it in all it's glory in the book but the publisher felt that the sub was too good a selling point to not show more of it on the cover. It's a fair point. Although I do like these underwater images. The title of the book has changed since then as well.

The images at the very top and below are from a couple of spreads within the book. The one at the top opens up as a gate fold, showing a cross-section of Claw's submarine. Hopefully that will look pretty spectacular and it's the centrepiece of the book. I might give you a sneak preview of a section of that at some point soon...

Captain Claw's cabin