The most important thing to understand about the book, is that from the very beginning, I was planning to turn it into an app. That meant I couldn't do everything in a single illustration. Most of the illustrations are done in pieces. Here's what I mean.
In step one, you can see the background, which is one illustration on a single piece of paper.
Next, through the magic of Photoshop, I "cut" all of the animals out of their respective images, and added them to the background.
In step 3, I added various bits and pieces of the background image to fill in any holes that needed covering.
The final step (which is the finished page) was adding highlights and shadows as needed, adding the text and making sure the page worked as a whole.
As you can see, the only way to sell this piece would be as a print. Almost every page in the book follows this same process. Only 5 of the pages are stand alone illustrations. Though there are only 14 pages to the book, in actuality, I did 55 separate illustrations. Hopefully, this will give you more insight into some of the reasons for the publishing delay.
In the past year or so, many people have asked if my original work is for sale. I'm happy to say I have recently opened a shop on Etsy, where you can purchase both original art as well as prints. The direct link is: http://www.etsy.com/shop/darkkristallized Paypal and all major credit cards are accepted.
For now, I will be working on a few personal pieces, but I do have a project waiting in the wings. Stay tuned!
