New site

Sorry for being off the grid for a while.  A big dose of life kept the blog off my to do list.  Check out the new site.

https://bobkolarbooks.com

End Pages

End pages are one of my favorite parts of creating a book. I think of them as a punctuation mark. They bracket a story, much like the frame of a painting. They aren't exactly part of the story, but can help you read it. I have often designed an image that shows the cast of the book. Sometimes it's just motif, but I always look forward to creating them. I create them last and it becomes a visual farewell.

Nothing Like A Puffin.
The Little Dump Truck
Astroblast, Moonstone Mystery
Astroblast, Code Blue

Friction

Every life's got a little.

3D

I'm starting to learn how to use 3D software. It's hard, but cool.

Does anyone remember "My Three Sons"?

Ideas come from all over. I don't know why but when I was making this book I had the animated intro to an old TV show called "My Three Sons" running through my head. (sorry, most of you have never seen it I'm sure) It showed the legs and feet of three men tapping their wingtip shoes to the music. The sketchy memory I have of it inspired this part of Puffin.

Puffin

Here are some images from Nothing Like a Puffin. I have been really inspired by some of the mid-century kid book artists like Abner Graboff. I wanted that kind of simplicity and boldness in this book. I even gave a little off-register look to mimic some of the hand separated quality of books from that time period.

New this fall

Nothing Like a Puffin will be coming out this fall. It's written by Sue Soltis. It's kind of an existential little story about how there is nothing exactly like a puffin however almost anything can be in some way, be like a puffin. I loved it the first time I read the manuscript, but it I really had to live with it a while before I knew how I was going to illustrate it.