Pirate Book Storyboard

Kory has been working on illustrating a very fun pirate book. The characters are based on the authors grandchildren. As always, Kory starts off by story boarding the project in black and white. Storyboard drawings are quick, rough sketches to illustrate composure, length of book, number of pages and how the text interplay’s with the illustrations. This gives the artist and the author a baseline to work from. Once approved, Kory moves from storyboard to deep illustration. This is when things like color, texture and tone are carved out and the book “comes to life.” 

Holiday Gift Tags

A long time ago, Kory was in his floral shop Olive and Dahlia drawing & then painting some "ugly" little elves. He framed them up, put them on the custom designed Christmas trees there in the shop and they sold out quickly. I copied this idea by putting framed prints on our Christmas tree. I seriously adore these ugly little elves and since then we have added a few, one of each of our children. These drawings are so unique and fun, people notice them right away.

This year Kory came up with the idea of making special little gift tags of the "Elves of Whimsy". There are ten designs, so each pack comes with one of each. You can use these are official Santa lute indicators for your gifts, to spice up neighbor gifts and what we think is the best idea: give a pack to your neighbors AS THEIR GIFT! Think about it, you would be giving them something they can actually use, can use immediately, is not another darn cookie plate, won't make them fat, is easy and simple and they will LOVE it!

You can buy our gift tags on Etsy at https://www.etsy.com/…/whimsical-illustrated-holiday-gift-t… or you can send us a check, or pay by Venmo. Easy.
Less than 7 packs are $5 each. If you buy 7 or more packs, they are $4 each. They come in a cute little bag that is ready to gift to someone. This is an easy and cheep gift you will love giving this year. If you are just buying it for your own use, it will make your holiday gifts even more magical!!

Simultaneous Projects

I often take on multiple illustration projects simultaneously.  At first, it may seem like a bad idea.  But in the freelance world, it is good to have many things in the pipeline since you have no idea when they will emerge, (and how long after that it takes to get paid!)  However, keeping the pipeline full and running is only half of the reason I like to have two or three (or 5!) books going at the same time.  Keeping things fresh when you are 30 illustrations into a project can be very difficult.  So it is a great benefit to all of the projects involved if I have the opportunity to step away from time to time and work on something completely different.

In this particular case, I am working on a book called "The Boy in Glasses" about a boy who experiences a shift in his perception of others. It is a very cute book by an author/teacher in Park City, UT.

For this project I will be using a combination of Adobe Photoshop tools to create a pen and ink look with some watercolor.  This is all digital. 

"The Mighty Knights" - Book 3!

It is time for a new book in the "Mighty Knights" series!  The first book found brave brothers Harry and Thomas battling an imaginary dragon through the kitchen in the middle of the night.

Later, in the second installment we saw a tough little girl named Sapphire who, with the help of her timid friend Archer, battled a two-headed dragon from the heights of their tree house! 

Now, (or soon) we meet Amelia.  Amelia, like Sapphire, is a tough little chica with pals at the ready to battle the latest dragon in Peter Clark's "The Mighty Knights" books! I can say no more right now about the story, but here is a sneak peak at the character concept for little Amelia.

This project will be more of a collaboration as we develop the images and the text side by side.  I will be illustrating an outline from which the words will come to Peter.  Likewise, as the text evolves, I will be responding to Peter's writing.  Follow along as we develop this project!  Invite others to follow along and for those who are interested in one day illustrating and want to follow the process, here we go!

Not ready to have your whole children's book illustrated? We have a suggestion...

As an illustration studio we run across lots of authors who are not quite ready to take the plunge of illustrating their whole book for many reasons:

1. They may not have the manuscript fully developed.
2. They may not have the funds available.
3. They may be looking for the right artist to bring their script to life.

So we've come up with a simple solution; the single page illustration. Let me be a little more specific. You can get ONE page of your book illustrated for a flat fee of $300. 

Why is this a good idea?

1. There is no long term committment/contract like there is when you have your whole book illustrated.
2. It can help you figure out a style for your story.
3. This could help inspire further development of your story, break writers block, give you a starting point or get you feeling more comfortable and excited about your story.
4. Obviously this costs a lot less than paying for your whole book.
5. Could use the image to promote the book to publishers or on a crowdfunding campaign.
6. Help you feel confident in working with Kory and as an introduction to the process of having your book illustrated. 

So if this sounds like as good of an idea to you as it does to us, here is an idea of what the process would be doing this single page with KF Studios:

1. You contact Kory at kory.fluckiger@gmail.com or 801-759-5782 and tell him your interested.
2. You pay the $300 non refundable flat rate fee via Direct deposit through America First Credit Union, Check, PayPal (extra fee may apply), Venmo, Apple pay etc.
3. You send your manuscript if you have one or any other written thoughts about the story (in addition to what you have already told him about the story in your previous conversations.)
2. Kory will familiarize himself with the story and determine which scene or page seems to be most easily representative of the whole on its own. 
3. Kory would further collaborate with you over the phone or in person about any other peripheral information that may contribute to the image that wasn't explicit in the writing.
4. Kory will draw your picture.
5. You get your digital file!
6. You can print it and hang it in your workspace for inspiration, use it on your social media page, use it in your Kickstarter or other crowdfunding campaign, put it on your laptop screensaver and whatever else you can think of!

Well, if you are interested, be in touch!

Thanks! 
-The KF Studios team

Kory Fluckiger, Heather McKinnon and the rest of the little people. 

Introducing...

Hey all.  Allow me to introduce someone to you.  As you may know, this is a family business and no matter how small the job is, a quick sketch for the margin of a presentation, the vectorization of someone's old logo that they can't find the original file for, or the illustration of a 60 page picture book with full backgrounds and edge to edge bleed, it involves to whole family.  My lovely wife, Heather McKinnon, has been helping me out with some of the administrative side of the business and that includes this blog.  As she is a creative collaborator in all that I do, she is deeply involved in my work and relationship with my clients.  She is going to be making an effort to keep this blog running and to post regularly and relevantly!  Please watch for more posts to keep up on what is happening.

10 Year Anniversary Sale!!!

Dear Friends,  I have one painting left in my inventory for which I would LOVE to find a great home.  We have been holding on to it for sentimental reasons as it was inspired by and dedicated to my wife and her sister.  I started the painting just after we were married and this month we celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  Thus it is both our anniversary as well as the painting's!

http://koryfluckiger.com/site/Artwork/Pages/Archives.html#0

We are holding an ad hoc "auction" for the piece ending on June 11th (our anniversary) at midnight.  If you would like to place a bid, just email me or heather (kory@koryfluckiger.com or heather@koryfluckiger.com) or comment in here in the blog.  The current bid will be shown at the right.  Pick this piece up for a steal rather than the thousands it is worth!  The framed piece is shown in the picture but you should follow the link to see a clear scan of the painting. The framed piece measures 39.5"x32.5" and is in a lovely dark custom frame.

Thanks for all of your support, and just to clarify, this isn't my last painting I will make.  It is the last one that I have available for sale, and it may be years before there are more!   Happy bidding!