Dan Santat's Sidekicks Is Out (thanks, in part, to me)!

No, really. Dan Santat, creator of Disney Channel's The Replacements and illustrator of one of my favorite children's books in the last year, Oh No!, has just released his long awaited graphic novel, Sidekicks, and I actually helped him make his deadline. Here's how it went...

Santat, one of the most popular children's books illustrators out there, was juggling a few deadlines and needed help flatting (I'll explain later) some panels in Sidekicks, his very own graphic novel about crime-fighting super pets. So he put the call out on his blog and a few of us stepped up. It's cute animals and superheroes. How could I resist?

Ok, anyway, flatting is just a fancy term for laying down a flat-color underpainting that the finish artist goes over with highlights, shadows and texture. Flatting is a necessary process, but it can also be time-consuming and tedious. And when you have other deadlines to meet, flatting is something that can be handled by your assistants...or sidekicks. In this case, Dan was assisted by myself and maybe five other talented artists out there on the web (check out the above link to Dan's blog to see who else participated).

So, a big thanks to Dan Santat for giving me a try and trusting me with his artwork. I haven't received my complementary copy of the book yet, but I'm going to assume it's pretty entertaining (at least what I've seen of it). So maybe you'd like to give it a try. Meanwhile, I have some very basic work-in-progress steps below showing my part of the process. -v