Website address & new blog design

Hi everyone,
We're excited to announce the official website for Ink Bloom www.inkbloomadventure.com
Right now it's just a homepage, but Chris' brother Dan has some great ideas for the site. We'll let you know once it launches.
Also, as you may have noticed, the blog has a whole new look. Thanks Dan. It looks sweet.
The layout of the book is coming along nicely. Guy at Impact is doing a fantastic job, and the book should be ready to go to the printer at the end of the month. We're really excited on this end.

Jim

Fantasy Art China

Fantasy Art China is doing a big article on Ink Bloom, so if you live in China and are reading this (yeah, right) keep your eyes pealed for it in the near future. It's an awesome magazine.

Facebook

Hachi's now on Facebook. You can look her up by name (Hachi Hachimitsu) or click on the link to the right. Over there you can see a little larger image of the color cover art.

Oh boy, Facebook (Jim says sarcastically).

And no, even though Hachi kicks butt, she will not join your mafia.

Done Done & Done

Ta-Dow!

I've finished all my pieces for Ink Bloom! Once again, this thing is a monster. Jim and I have completed loads of art for this book. 30 Step-By-Step demos and an additional 30+ pieces of art! All original art from top to bottom makes this the most ambitious project I've worked on.

I can't believe it. Now what am I going to do...???

I guess I'll have to wait.

Chris

Finally Done

After many months of work I am finally finished with all of my work for Ink Bloom. The book now has about twice as much art as was originally planned for, and about 50 extra pages. That meant a lot more work, but I think the end result will be all the better for it, especially for the reader. The story is more engrossing and the visuals are going to blow you away. Plus, it will come with a DVD showing Chris painting. All of that for $26.99, what a deal.
We've seen some of the preliminary layout from the graphic designer, Guy Kelly, and they look awesome. We're both really happy with the work he's doing. It's very satisfying to see it all coming together.
Chris is finishing up his last couple of paintings right now, so once he's done we'll give you all another sneak peak of some artwork.
Finally, we had a great news article about the book in the November issue of Imagine FX, and Fantasy Art China is going to do a large article on us with artwork as well. Things are really getting exciting now. I can't wait to see this bad boy in print.

Later,

Jim

The Voice of the Stone

So you want to write a story, Huh? Have any good ideas?

I have this story about a girl...

Jim and I have been collaborating on Ink Bloom for over a year and a half now. Since the book is almost finished I figure I'd give you some insight as to how we work together to develop the story and characters. I'll be honest, I'm not much of a writer. But what I do have are ideas. Lots of them. They pour out of my head sometimes into my sketch book or are inspired by a phone conversation Jim and I might have had while discussing "what should Hachi do next". We purposely developed a universe is which there are endless possibilities for Hachi to discover and grow as a hero. We started off with very broad topics and narrowed them down to a solid story. Like sculpting in marble, chipping away at the surface until you have found the voice of the stone. The most rewarding part of working the way we do is that there are no bad ideas. Once and awhile one of us will go off on a tangent on a topic that might sound crazy at first and through that craziness we find that gem of an idea. Being creative is a process. It just doesn't happen overnight. Jim and I have approached discussions of Hachi's adventures with total open minds. We don't know what's coming but we are on for the ride. Through this broad scope we then were able to narrow down people, places and things Hachi discovers. Some are very clear and the ones that aren't involve more discussion and direction from each other. The process has been creatively stimulating since our first discussions. Jim was then able to take our pages and pages of notes and character studies and graphs to develop the story and plots and subplots into solid writing. Allot of preparation went into what we now know as Ink Bloom and we couldn't be happier with the end result!

Chris

Edits done

Well, Chris and I have finished all of our revisions to the text. It was quite a tedious process. I'm taking all of my big art for the step by steps to the photographer tomorrow so that I can get some really nice reproductions shot for the book. All of this will get turned over to the layout guy at Impact, who just happens to be named Guy, at the end of next week. I'm very excited to see what he comes up with for the layout. It's nice to see all of it coming together now. Chris and I came up with this idea well over a year ago, and now we're in the home stretch. We're almost done with all of the spot illos, so that means there a just a few big paintings to do that don't have any steps , and the cover.

We got our first big piece of publicity. I had a gallery in this month's Heavy Metal magazine, which had a paragraph on Ink Bloom in it. Also, an upcoming issue of Imagine FX will have a news story about it. Can't wait to see that. I love Imagine FX.

More soon,

Jim