Incoming! Gideon's 300

Gideon and God's 300 is one of my upcoming books to be launched in the upcoming Manila International Book fair. It took some time to make these since there were supposed to be thousands of soldiers in each spread, which according to the Old Testament story, dwindled down to 300 as they fought their sword-less war.

I had a lot of fun with the night sky, fires, and how I got to do characters in an actual serious war, as opposed to my usual children's books.

Surveillance also happens to be this week's illustration Friday topic, and it reminded me on how fun it was to color the sneaky scene where Gideon spied on their enemies. I colored these the usual way and then photoshopped a layer of dark aqua tint to drench everything in a cool tone. When i erased the reflected light areas on their faces, that created the magic.

Gideon's 300 is soon to be published by OMF Literature (Manila) in the 3rd qtr. of 2013.

Halloween preparation (O_O)

I just noticed that this previous post from my smartphone didn't get thru. I am currently preparing for my halloween picture book. This project has been shelved for many years. Just realized that when i dug up my old manuscripts dated years ago. 

Incidentally, in the time span that this is taking place, i met an old friend from gradeschool who is now connected with a candy company, and is keen on doing events. I hope we really get to pull it off in creating a halloween launch party with books, candy and costumes. That's something I've never had in my other books! 

In case you have an android app that uploads effectively, do let me know so i can update easier without being in front of the mac! 

Happy Father's day!

Here's an excerpt from my upcoming book, and also a glimpse of my childhood. I grew up in a home-office and it was inevitable that I'd build one myself, too.

Cheers to all the dads who inspire their kids !

Illustration Friday: Tension

This week's illustration Friday topic is TENSION. Here's an excerpt from one of my upcoming books, Paolo's Magic (written by Glenda Oris and published by Lampara Books). This book excited me for it was my first take on depicting a manuscript using anthropomorphic characters which was never mentioned by the publisher or writer. Glad to know they were keen on it as well after i submitted the sketches.

I don't really know why I chose hounds for my characters, but I enjoy how they played out as my main actors. My process involved decisions on rabbits (but was awkward in the haircut scenes for their ears might be snipped off!), hedgehogs (but being hairy IS their thing!) and these dogs. Due to the wide array of canines, I chose one of my favorites for the supporting character, a fox for Regor the barber (who later disguises himself as a magician, justifying how sly foxes are).

Here is the cover of the book:

  Main text is in Filipino, with english parallel text.

Coming this 2013 :)

My New Book and Illustration Friday: Liquid

Back cover

Front cover

Presenting one of my new books for this year, My Daddy! My One and Only! to be published by Lampara Books (Manila).

Incidentally, the working period of this book fell under my own father's last few months on planet earth. Aside from the books I wrote, this may have been the only personal one since it dealt a lot with looking back at me and my dad's moments together when I was a child.

The cover of this book shows a lot of how imagination played a great deal in our bonding moments. Though the writer, Zarah Gagatiga (http://lovealibrarian.blogspot.com) never mentioned about pirates, the back cover makes sense of it all.

Though I grew up in the 80's and early 90's, my dad, who under Tejido tradition was called Pop was not the stereotypical father. He acted more like a brother and friend, the type who you could splash water with in pools and he'd make it into a silly game.

A week after I drew this pool scene we bought our daughter an adult-sized portable pool that is now taking up the garage space.

My one and only Pop, Poch Tejido will be missed, but his happy memories shall live on.


 

 

Happy Mother's Day (and illustration Friday)!

This Week's Illustration Friday theme is "Tribute", hence a tribute to moms for mothers' day.

This illustration is another sneak peek of one of my upcoming books this year, "My Daddy! My One and Only!" written by Zarah Gagatiga (http://lovealibrarian.blogspot.com). 

Going Home

Here's a sneak peek at my upcoming picture book written by librarian Zarah Gagatiga (http://lovealibrarian.blogspot.com) . It's my first time partnering with her as an author and I am super glad I got to play around with the characters and the much-loved free space made possible by her light text content. A dilemma I face in my book design process is the amount of text in a page, considering that most of our country's books are bilingual (Filipino and English) for marketability reasons.

It was coincidental that this week we visited a new school location for our daughter and we kinda fell in love with the homey little play-school we ended up in. If there is one character in this image that i can relate to, is the two-tone dog waiting for a long time. I remember waiting for so long for my parents to pick me up in kindergarten.  :)