Tag Archives: Digital art

Billy Goats & a Troll, Three Blind (Pew) Mice, Illustration wit a Twist

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 Put a new twist on an old idea

Why not make the troll HUGE!

Troll SketchThis is an image for a fun little book project I was doing awhile ago and unless you just arrived on this planet you already know what the story is.
I had done another book project that was for a fractured fairy tale called The Three BULLY Goats. A cute little story where the goats were the bullies and the troll was kind and gentle.
I guess that led to me wanting to

illustrate another troll under a bridge with a goats story. I wanted to make an image that would bring a slight twist on the classic BILLY Goats Gruff tale and I thought that playing with the scale of the troll might make my piece more unique. I’ve always been puzzled when musicians re-make a well-known song yet fail to put their own artistry into the performance. I hope I can give this book freshness so that both adults and children can appreciate it.

CAN YOU TELL IF I PAINTED THIS TRADITIONALLY OR DIGITALLY?

Part of my process has always been to work from a warm tone over the entire surface – and then I add tone to the shadow areas. Weather I used acrylics, oils or an iPad or other digital devices, I would still go from a toned canvas, to toned shadows to to the finished piece.

I combined two different sketches to get it right. 

I combined two sketches because I was having a hard time drawing the Troll where I wanted him in one sketch. I used Photoshop to get it right…and the painting was also done in Photoshop. – Brushes that never run out of paint! Undo! Copy Paste! Endless Adjustments! Speed! No Shipping Costs!

A new look at an old illustration

3 blind (pew) mice. A  new take on an old favorite by NC Wyeth called the Blind Pew.

0003 Jim M. 3 blind mice. A new take on an old favorite painting from NC Wyeth called the Blind Pew.
Artist Jim Madsen, (Wayne Andreason is his best friend) copied “Blind Pew” with a twist. He took an old favorite by NC Wyeth, the Blind Pew and put it to Three Blind Mice.

The Blind Pew ~NC Wyeth

NC Wyeth's illustration, the Blind Pew
Compare the mouse on the left and the house in the background. And the color pallet and painting technique. Although Jim’s is a digital painting. Way to go Jim.

How to Make an App: Step 10: Make Another App

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Nice Reviews on Our Story App & a Sneak Peek at “Gary’s Worms”

We are so excited to talk about the reviews Gary’s Place is getting as well as talk about the sequel to Gary’s Place. Gary’s Got Worms.

Gary’s got worms?

Starting my next app, Gary’s got Worms. It’s not what you think, In this next App, Gary has worms, but not the itchy bum type, the night crawler type. Either way, worms can be a pain, in the end.

Gary’s Place gets a 4.5 and a 5 star rating!

We have the new updates now that we’ve fixed the ending of Gary’s place and we submitted it to Digital Story Time and The iMums. Two of the top review sites for children’s story apps. Digital Story Time gave us 4.5 stars and The iMums gave us 5 stars! YAY! I couldn’t believe it! I had to start looking at the competition on those sites and found that many of the other apps in the 4-5 star range are being produced by big publishers like Harper Collins and Disney. It felt really good to be able to start and finish this project with Rick Walton and my son Aaron and a little help from Tabitha Thompson’s wonderful voice acting – and to be able to compete!

WHY IS HE HELLBENT ON MAKING APPS? IS HE CRAZY?

Since we’re finally rolling I’ll share our sales stats from Google Play, Amazon, and iTunes, but not yet, stay tuned. I will in future posts. I don’t expect to sell thousands of these, and certainly not overnight. I don’t think digital publishing works that way for the

most part. I’ve got my eye on the long term goal of steadily building a brand. Some of my peers ask me why I seem to be so hellbent on making apps. Why work on a project like this without any guarantee of success? Why not spend 
more time in traditional publishing markets? Or watch more TV? Why risk it? Do you hate traditional publishing? ARE YOU CRAZY?

I love these questions – keep em coming! :)

No I don’t hate traditional publishing – I illustrated 3 books last year and loved each one of them. I look forward to illustrating more in the future. I’m having the time of my life working in a medium that is expanding my knowledge and skill sets. I’m enjoying the collaborations I’m making with famous children’s book author Rick Walton, and my son Aaron – who, by the way, is very creative and is actually a major contributor on interactive, animation, and content ideas. I count myself extremely lucky to be able to afford the time to work on these. But probably the biggest reason is that in order to succeed in anything artistic there needs to be risk. I’ve learned to embrace it. This doesn’t mean that I don’t hear nasty things from the voices. There always there but I’ve learned how to cage them quicker and keep them locked away longer.Many are afraid of digital publishing. Some are wishing it away. Some are ignoring it. I would just like to point out that it took nearly 50 years for the automobile to become mainstream. The early contraptions were noisy, expensive, unreliable, and inefficient. People  made fun of the early adopters. Many were hoping they would fail so everything would go back to normal. I can’t predict the future but I doubt we will move away from digitally delivered and enhanced storybooks for children. This means that I won’t have to worry about my creations going out of print.

Build a Quality Brand

My plan is to steadily and slowly build a quality brand. Each new app will advertise the previous story apps and each previous app will be updated to advertise the newest story app. I guess that might be step 11 or step 12 but who’s keeping track? They “say slow and steady wins the race” – unless it’s a sprint – we’ll see. I keep hearing about artists who make an app and never make another one because they didn’t sell enough to justify the effort. I also hear about those who make one app and it’s their “Driving Miss Daisy” and they are suddenly rich, and famous and they are millionaires, but that is fluke-ish and it’s probably those guys that make the rest of us want to give up when we don’t hit a home run with our first try. I think this is a mistake if they can afford to continue. Think about some of the most famous picture book brands out there – like the Olivia stories…or the Skippyjon Jones books. They weren’t created in a year or even two – it took a LONG time. It took RISK from their publishers. So Give a Hoot, Take a Risk, and another, and another, and slowly and steadily win the race, it’s not a sprint. 

Story Apps Need (good) Ratings TOO

If you’ve bought a copy of Gary’s Place I’d love to hear what you think! Also if you wouldn’t mind giving us a rating in the app store – that will help – good or bad – Preferably good. My mom used to say, you must be able to think of something good to say about anyone, or any app. 
If you haven’t bought a copy, feel free to buy it, we don’t mind.
thank you
If you want to go back and see all the steps, start with step one and link from there. How to make an app-step 1.

How to Make a Story App, step 9, fix it.

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Gary’s Place Now Available For Android

In this post I’m going to write about what we’ve been doing with Gary’s place and some of the mistakes we’ve made along the way – and give information on how to contact my son Aaron for help with your app.

Now Playing at Google Play and Amazon app stores near you.

First: Gary’s Place can now be found in the Google Play and Amazon app stores for Android devices – YAY! We are charging a dollar less since it’s optimized for iPad and stretched a bit on many of the android phones and tablets.

Still not a best seller. 

Second: I’m not sharing sales data yet because we really haven’t gotten off the ground yet – I’ve been holding back because of all the problems we’ve had – ARRRRG! Sales data coming after we start advertising. Naturally I hope it sales like “Where the Wild Things Are” but I am also realistic. So don’t hate me if it flops. I already know that it might. That’s the beauty of free enterprise. We are lucky to have the freedom to buy, the freedom to sell, the freedom to try AND the freedom to fail.

So lets talk about the problems and subsequent updates:

UPDATE #1: FIX THE NAME.

When we first uploaded to iTunes and waited and waited for the approval we were horrified when we downloaded the app and saw that it was called “Build 17” on my iPad in the title below the icon. NOOOOOO!!!!! Let me just say, that while Apple is “user friendly” for consumers they are 180 degrees from that for developers (User UNFRIENDLY). It really feels as if they don’t care about helping you AT ALL! Or even like they want you to fail, give up, eat worms and kill yourself. When we uploaded the app file, Apple asked for the title of the app – which we filled in with “Gary’s Place”. But they don’t use that to put under your app icon – instead – they use the file name -BUT THEY DON’T TELL YOU THAT.

Now available, an awesome children’s story App, “Build 17”. No, it’s not sci fi. 

Therefor, update number one, change the name to something a little more appealing, like “Gary’s Place”.

Update #2: fix the ending and reducing the overall size

The story of Gary’s Place is about a small fur bearing animal that lives with mom and dad, and eventually moves out into a place of his own. Hence the name. Gary’s Place.
Well one of my online friends – Elizabeth – informed me that at first she interpreted the ending as Gary moving back in with his parents at the end. “Hmmm”,  I thought, “that’s not good.” So I asked Jan Watford who had reviewed Gary’s Place on her blog if she read it that way as well – and she said, “Yes, isn’t that what you intended?” …..Crap!
So…Update # 2 was to fix the ending and reducing the overall size of the app…and that update just went live for iPad. Yay!

Update #3: add a navigation bar

Then my app builder guy, AKA my son Aaron (who’s been working really hard on all of this) thought we needed navigation to make it easier to pick a specific page in the app and go directly there. (It will disappear after a few seconds so it’s not in the way.) That was a GOOD CALL. I’ve been so busy with a large freelance assignment that I haven’t been able to give it as much attention as it deserves. So luckily I have him around, and yes, I compensate him for his brilliance and work. He went ahead and did added the navigation, and it makes using the app Sooo much easier, and user friendly. Take that Apple. Below is a screen shot of what update #3 will look like. So Update #3 will add a navigation bar to quickly jump to any page and reduce the size even further.

UPDATE #4: TBA and in the mean time, Start my next App 

My writer/partner, Rick Walton has now written the next story and I’m starting to layout the entire app – and loving it! Gary’s has Worms.

My son Aaron has decided to help other people with their apps as long as they’re using Kwik. He’s spent the last 3 months working with Kwik and has gotten pretty good at it. He’s offering to coach you or build your app – you can visit his site right here: or copy and paste or click this>>>http://www.atanimations.com/ and here’s a gratuitous link to FolioAcademy.com where you will find art lessons online.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day

P.S. Happy Valentines Day. Thanks to Photoshop, I was able to customize a candy heart pic for my wife and valentine RuthAnn.

I will post step 10 on Feb, 21, 2014, put it on your calendar, and put that on your fridge. See you then.

A Little Art Assignment With PhotoShop

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A Little Art Exercise with Photo Shop

Digital painting class –

Rules: Use Photoshop – add a cabin and appropriate lighting for the landscape – one brush – one layer – no tracing – no undo – no eraser – no eye dropper – no tools other than the brush – paint too dark? tough – paint light values over your mistakes.

Give yourself 3 hours… GO!

cabin assignment

 

 

 

 

-Cost: Free, just do it.

-Consequences: Learning……the groans and moans will be worth every penny! 

Making the transition to Digital Art

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So you want to draw and paint digitally but don’t quite know how to make the transition.

Digital artwork after taking a few digital courses

After Taking a few courses
by Lisa Lavoie

Digital art is increasing in popularity but where do we learn how to do it.

 Most artists start our creating art on paper. We were all children drawing on walls and furniture and our good mothers and fathers put paper in front of us and encouraged us to create our masterpieces thereon. They later hung those treasures on the refrigerator for the world to see and admire. And that felt good.

As we develop our craft, we get more and more comfortable with the tools we use. Now days we see so much artwork being created digitally and if we want to joining in, we have a whole new learning curve. But the benefits of certain features make the switch well worth it in so many cases. Features like, Undo, Blur, Copy and Paste, Re-size, Distort, Transparency, Layers and much much more make it so desirable to work online.

There is no replacement for practice of stick-to-it-ive-ness. Getting out there and fooling around with the tools and layers, and features. Using the tutorials is also a good idea. Once you get comfortable with the whole digi process, you should explore new ideas and textures as well. And bounce ideas off your friends and other artists. Will Terry had help from some of his students at first.

Sometimes all you need is a little instruction from others who have developed a their technique in the digital world.

This is the kind of email we like to receive.  Creative Directrice Lisa Lavoie at lalatopia.com, is one of our happy fans who had this to say.

Hi Will!

Just wanted to say thanks for your Folio Academy courses – I’ve gone through several, but the painting and color ones were the most helpful.

Attached a pic of what my digital art looked like before + two pieces I just finished after watching your courses. Obviously my illustration technique had already progressed substantially  – but was getting nowhere trying to convert to a digital workflow that didn’t look awkward and digital. And now my digital art is even better than my real media pieces!

Thanks again :)

Lisa

Digital artwork before taking a few digital courses

BEFORE

Digital artwork after taking a few digital courses

AFTER

Thank you Lisa for your kind words. You have a really cool and unique style.

For those of you who are still reading, these are the digital art course we presently offer at FolioAcademy.

Five Quick Photoshop Tips for Illustrators by Dani jones. Justin Cooks three courses, Digital Inking and Coloring in Adobe Illustrator, Digital Inking And Coloring in Corel Painter, and Learn To Draw Cartoon Zombies. And a few by Will Terry like, Digital Painting in Photoshop 1 and part 2, Painting on the iPad, and Beginning Photoshop for Digital Painting.

 

ArtRage, An Affordable Alternative to PhotoShop

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Digital Art is becoming the Rage

A few people have asked me if there is a cheap, or rather, an inexpensive alternative to Photoshop to create images for children’s books, story apps etc. More and more artists, especially illustrators, are creating their work online or digitally, using programs like Photoshop, well almost exclusively PhotoShop. Infact, I teach a neat course or two on illustrating in PhotoShop and they are probably our most popular courses here at FolioAcademy.com.  Another big seller is our “Painting on the iPad“, another digital format. But PhotoShop is expensive.

Is there a less expensive way to create digital art?

That is a good question, now that PhotoShop is like a utility bill, a necessary evil,  running around $50 a month, you have to wonder if it is the only game in town. I have the answer you were hoping for…

– Yes there is – it’s called ArtRage – but it’s a completely different program and not really comparable to PS. – However, I’m having a blast with it!

art rage 01

I did this in ArtRage

See what others are saying about ArtRage

I don’t know everything about ArtRage so I posted this pic (see above) and another  (see below) on FaceBook with the following caption,

“Late night playing with ArtRage… wishing I had a slice of choc cake…” 

I got a lot of comments. If you want to see what others had to say, read on.

~Leslie Ryan: I have loved art rage for years!

~Hazel G Mitchell: Yum!

~Robert James: That does look like a tasty cake!

~Steve Gray: Beautiful job on the cake! I want some too!

~Shawn Colloton: The cake makes me hungry. And, I don’t care for cake.

~Robert Wahl: forget the cake… WHAT’S in the bottle?

~Debasis Roy: I love Artrage.. post more work in Artrage if you can…

~Canada Goose: hey cool i have that same blue bottle on my window sill!! I dig them up on the old wagon trail dump sites, been meaning to do a watercolor of it..good job! ps send me the cake, too heehee

~Canada Goose: Robert Wahl, in those days it would have had medicine in it heavily laced with alcohol or opium..ahh the good ol days..

~Dyann J Callahan: cough cough I am sick..please pass it

~Ashley Aliko: Uh em. Testing, 1 – 2. (very small voice) What is “ArtRage”? (don’t throw tomatoes!)

~Will Terry: You can install it on desktops, laptops, and even iPads! – I like it for the oil painting engine – it’s pretty amazing…http://www.artrage.com/

~Dyann J Callahan painting: with your finger on it?

~Cora Lynn Deibler: Beautiful experiment! Given that cake, yer a regular Wayne Thiebaud!

art rage 02

Then I posted this one and these are the comments…

~Nor Sanavongsay: Wished I’d stayed as an Illustration major in college. Learned about Web Publishing instead. BUT I’m slowly getting back into illustrating thanks to your online courses and advices.

~Will Terry: Thanks Nor – but the web stuff can make for a deadly combination if combined with art…I’ll probably be the one wishing I had more skill in the end.
~Alicia VanNoy Call: I love ArtRage. That’s what I always use on the iPad.
So weird to see you doing still lifes.
~Angie Jones: Art rage is perfect for traditional media artists wanting to go digital.
~Dan Olivier-Argyle: p.s. really like the variety of colour in the yellows
~Steve James: Just have to chime in here- There is a great inexpensive software package that compares to photoshop. Manga Studio 5– Don’t let the name fool you it is solid software. I say we support anything that is not tied into adobe. It is heavily discounted right now on amazon.
~Will Terry: Dyann – I’m using my Cintiq and stylus…
~Dyann J Callahan: make it after xmas so we can get that paid haha

~Shawn Colloton: Nope, it’s Called the Gimp. I’ve edited the preferences so that Gimp works just like photoshop, including hot keys. http://www.gimp.org/

~Chris Ragan: Proof that it’s not the tool but rather the artist!
~Robert Wahl: This could be a lot of fun! Great tennis balls, Will!
~Jan Clifton Watford: I used to work in Art Rage and loved the way it was set up but had tremendous problems with the memory and saving images. I will have to try it out again on my new iPad Air which is the bomb BTW. I like Procreate and Sketchbook Pro on iPad a lot. The updates on Procreate are remarkable every time
~Jan Clifton Watford: On Mac Pixelmatr is a good alternative for sizing images and is cheap -$30
~Steve Gray: That stuff looks great Will!
~Bob McMahon: Great alternative to Corel Painter!
~Charlie Eve Ryan: I heart Manga Studio 5, too!
~Mary Flynn: Shetchbook pro is real reasonable and is similar to photoshop
~Ashley Aliko: I am loving your painterly expressions here. Are these printable at 300+ dpi or only for web?
~Marty Qatani: I picked this up a few months ago, based on numerous recommendations from Sherm Cohen Still getting used to it, but is a fun alternative.
~Nancy Hernandez-Kennedy: Cool impressionist look!
~Mike Cressy: I can see you doing your next book with ArtRage!
~Cora Lynn Deibler: I’m a Procreate (good app, unfortunate name) and Sketchbook Pro fan… can see I must try ArtRage!
~Will Terry: I like ArtRage better on my desktop than on my iPad…but that’s probably because I’m still rockin the iPad 2…it probably runs much better on iPad air.
~Ashley Aliko: I am thinking I WANT to do something (book-ish) with ArtRage.
~Cora Lynn Deibler: On the iPad 2 here as well (I noticed with a recent Procreate update that I need to do fewer layers due to memory/processor issues- yikes!). Still, the iPad is such a great portable studio. Will look into ArtRage for the laptop…
~Sarah Treu: I love that loose style! Beautiful!
~Nicole Goodfellow: I love art rage, but now considering using sketchbook instead… Not sure which one to buy.. Have you used sketchbook?
~Will Terry: I haven’t used sketchbook on my desktop but I did have it on my iPad – I wasn’t that impressed but I know a lot of people like it.
~Nancy Harrison: I’ve used ArtRage (a bit) on my desktop. At $30 for desktop versions, it may be the cheapest paint software…
~Debasis Roy: beautiful work.. the oil brush is very similar to natural oil…

Thank you for the comments everyone. I still want a piece of chocolate cake. A little ice-cream would be nice too.

HOW TO MAKE A STORY APP – STEP 7

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links to previous steps are at the end of this post. 

Add sound effects to your story app.

Adding the sound effects was one of the funnest parts of the creation process. I was amazed at how the sound can “sell” the animation or idea – it’s pure magic. Watching your little animations is great but they are silent by themselves – adding the right sound brings them to life.

A few tips for finding and applying sound effects to your apps.

I used freesound.org for a bunch of the sounds in my app. The sounds are free to use as long as you give credit to the artists in your project. I only used “public domain” sounds and “creative commons” licensed sounds. The agreements can be easily viewed and read on their site.

I also created some sounds using tinyvox on my iPad and then altered them in Audacity. I couldn’t find a good digging sound for Gary but I knew what I wanted – so I scratched my pant leg  – I know – weird right? But it made a pretty good sound and I could kill tow birds with one stone. (don’t really kill birds) I could get that sound I wanted and scratch that itch on my leg at the same time. Then I doubled it up in Audacity, changed the pitch, and cleaned up the front and back end and it was perfect!

Kwik allows you to use both mp3 and wave files which you can create in Audacity. My total learning time in Audacity was about one hour from fooling around with the program and watching youtube videos produced by 8 year olds.

One of the most important things you can do with your sound files is to chop off the dead space at the front and end of the clips. You don’t want the users of your app to hear hiss or crackle before the actual sound is about to play.

Stay tuned for more Steps. Coming soon.

Cover Picture of Gary's Place

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll keep sharing my progress on “Gary’s Place” which I plan to submit to Apple, In fact, It is NOW only available on IOS But – we’ll have it up on Amazon for android very soon!…did I mention – IT’S DONE!!!!, Google, Amazon, etc. in a few weeks. Just in time for Christmas (Next Year) I’ll continue to blog about this process even sharing my sales stats when it hits the various app stores!

A few reviews already:

“My Kids adore Gary.” ~Sabrina Chamberlain-Parks

“Great job Will! I loved the page/scene transition especially.” ~Jan Clifton Watford

I bought the app for myself, I don’t even have kids and I loved it. Gary pulls you in and you can’t wait to turn the page to see what he’s up to next. Great job Will, I’ll pass it on to my parenting friends! ~Zulu Zulu

See how to make a story app from the beginning.

If you’re wondering where the first steps are I started this project back in September 2013 – check these links: And if you just want to brush up on your nun-chuck skills, or rather, your art skills, take a course at folioacademy.com, art lessons online.

Now available, Step 8. The final step, till we add more, are you ever realy finished?

Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 5.5, Step 6

HOW TO MAKE A STORY APP (for iPad) – STEP 5.5

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How To Make A Story App – Step 5.5

Finish the artwork.

(for earlier steps scroll down or click the following links)

How to Make a Story App – Step 1
Scene of Gary in his little house.

Shoooeeeee – that took a while! But it was worth it… I hope.

I’m not going to even try to explain how much fun I’ve had with the art work in this story app…like…nope…not going to even try. But Hey, I had a LOT of fun.

Of course it has been an incredible commitment and sacrifice. Lots of work with little or no guarantee of financial reward. I even had to turn down PAYING work and slack on my duties at FolioAcademy to have enough time to work on it – which will cause some to question my sanity. But those same people will probably say it was a good move if this pans out financially.

Do I suffer form insanity? Nope, I enjoy it.
Show me any thing of value in this world that didn’t come with some crazy idea and a lot of sacrifice? For me the journey is worth it alone. I’m content because I’m seeing my idea come to life. How many people can say that? Will it make money? We’ll find out as I plan to publish all my sales figures right here on this blog. Get ready to say, “I TOLD YOU SO!”This week I’ll be adding text and finding sounds…
Now available, Step 6.

How to Make an App – Step 4

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How To Make A Story App – Step 4

Work on character sketches, Interior sketches, and animations.

If you’re new to this blog you might want to scroll down to see my first steps…

Keep in mind that I’m making this up as I go

– I really don’t know what I’m doing but I’m going about this as systematically as possible. And the others here at Folio Academy are still letting me so there you go. I’m using my experience from illustrating children’s books to guide my process but apps are a whole new beast so we’ll see if this works out. Right now I have the entire app sketched out and am checking all of my animations to make sure they work and communicate.

What should you NOT animate?

The hard part was figuring out what to animate but more importantly what NOT to animate. I really want this app to be able to do more than a book but I don’t want to get into full blown animation. I like the idea of page breaks to let the reader fill in the missing visuals with their mind – so not getting caught up in time consuming non-important animation is key to making my self imposed deadline and keeping my sanity, or what’s left of it.

But what if you’re not an animator?

Good Question, I’m NO animator – This is my first time. I’m taking a serious crack at it so I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew either. The little guy above is my main character and I’ll be able to re-use this animation over and over in my story. Of course I still have to paint him so my work isn’t finished but you can see that even an old illustrator can learn a few new tricks

Where can I learn more about creating my own apps?

Glad you asked.

– I made a video tutorial on how to prepare this kind of artwork for a story app here.

Alex Sousa is going to show us how to make these kinds of animations work in Kwik in our upcoming class that begins in a few weeks. We still have a handful of slots left for the live class but many are opting for the LITE, or video recordings of our class.

Check back October 4, 2013 for step -5.

How to Make an App – STEP 1

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How to Make a Story App – Step 1

Step 1 – Start with a GREAT story!

I’m going to be blogging about the progress on my new story app “Gary’s Place” from now until it’s for sale in the app stores – and beyond – even updates on my sales figures. This is really scary because I’m promising to do something that I haven’t done yet. In fact there’s a voice yelling inside right now begging me to delete this and stop writing. But – here we go…

Step 1 – Start with a GREAT story!

I came up with an idea for a story about a gopher who isn’t content with his home. It had a good beginning, middle, and end but I couldn’t write a good manuscript because I don’t have enough writing experience.  So – I approached Rick Walton, a well known children’s book author and friend (over 90 published books – google screen shot above) and asked him to read my story and write it if he liked the idea. In a ridiculously short time he turned it into gold. Yes I will cut him in for a large percentage and yes it took him no time but I believe it will be worth every penny. He’s been writing for over 25 years and his experience shows.

The story is THE most important part of a story app. Illustrations, music, character voices, animation, games, coloring activities, things that giggle, wiggle and jiggle won’t make it a great app!

Often we don’t hold ourselves to the same quality standards we expect from the goods and services we consume. We want to see movies with a great story and cinematography asking friends and family for recommendations before dropping money at the box office. But do we provide the same when writing for a book, app, or e-book? If you don’t have the writing skills are you working hard to develop them? Have you considered partnering with a professional author?

I get emails, messages, and phone calls here at Folio Academy every week from authors looking for illustrators to partner with. Professional authors often have a huge back list of manuscripts that have never been published – usually much larger than their printed books. I guess a good question is will having a great story sell enough apps to offset the percentage or payment you’ll have to give up to an author? I think so. I believe that a smaller percentage of a GREAT project is worth much more than a larger percentage of a Mediocre project.

Did you know there are thousands of movies produced each year? How many can you name from 2013? My point is that if you aren’t producing the best who will care?

But Will, you’re a professional illustrator so it’s easy for you to work with professional authors.

Sure – it’s probably easier for me to strike up a conversation but from the sheer numbers of authors I’ve been approached by I know there’s a huge need out there and it’s only going to grow. If you’re passionate and committed I doubt you will have trouble talking an author into letting you take a crack at bringing one of their stories to life.

So check back say, Monday the 23rd, for Step 2 as I share my progress reports!