Gem Awards:
I am very happy to announce that Mouse Guard Legends of the Guard vol. 1 has won the Gem Award for Best 2010 Anthology! So I offer a huge thank you & congratulations to the contibutors: Jeremy Bastian, Ted Naifeh, Alex Sheikman, Sean Rubin, Alex Kain, Terry Moore, Gene Ha, Lowell Francis, Nate Pride, Guy Davis, Katie Cook, Jason Shawn Alexander, Craig Rousseau, Karl Kerschl, and Mark Smylie.

click here for Newsarama's coverage of the award announcement


June Alley Inn Model:Seeing the Gem announcement for Legends, I felt it would be a good time to share photos of my June Alley Inn model. I have shared a few photos of it before, but decided to make a gallery on my Facebook page* showing lots of angles of the model and with its various walls removed (click here for album). I made this model because I knew how important it was to make the setting for Legends as real as I could. I was introducing fifteen mouse characters the readers had never seen before and I needed their clothing, mugs, and even where they sat, as cues to which mouse they were. Seeing the mouse by the fire or the mouse under the painting of the ghost or the mouse near the stairs, would help identify the characters. With Legends of the Guard vol. 2 announced to be published after the Black Axe hardcover, I am very glad I made this model so durable, I'll be needing it again...
*Even without a Facebook account, you can view the album of photos

In future posts I plan to add to the Facebook gallery and show more angles of my other models.

Fan Art:
Ryan Horvath sent this fan art to me titled "Lieam with Totems". He wrote in the email:

Big fan of your work, both as an artist and a reader. I was out on some trails a
few months ago, spotted a tree I liked, came back to draw it and it eventually
turned into this. Hope you enjoy it.

I do! Thanks Ryan!

2011 Appearances
C2E2: March 18-20
Phoenix Comic Con: May 26-29
Cherry Capital Con: June 25-26
San Diego Comic Con: July 20-24
Baltimore Comic Con: Aug. 20-21
New York Comic Con: Oct. 14-16

Rendered Pencil
I don't often get a chance to do rendered pencil drawings these days. Mouse Guard keeps me inking away. but after I finished my Free Comic book Day story, I took an evening to just draw for fun, with no story or subject in mind. This pencil drawing was the result (well, I got 70% done that night and finished the other 30 a few weeks later). After finishing, I decided to try splashing some color on it in photoshop. I'm pleased with the result and wanted to share it with you.


Materials Unlimited
For several years I worked at an architectural salvage and antiques store in Ypsilanti, MI called Materials Unlimited. I left to work on Mouse Guard full-time, but after a recent visit, I realized how much I missed the constant aesthetic bombardment of the past. The shop is full of the craftsmanship of people long since gone, but I loved pouring over the details of materials and techniques, and patterns, and color on all the mantels, light fixtures, fencing, furniture, stained glass and other oddities. It is and will remain one of my favorite places to become inspired and find motifs and visual cues for the world of Mouse Guard.
(click the link above to browse the store virtually...unless you live in south-east Michigan, in which case it's worth the trip!)

2011 Appearances
C2E2: March 18-20
Phoenix Comic Con: May 26-29
Cherry Capital Con: June 25-26
San Diego Comic Con: July 20-24
Baltimore Comic Con: Aug. 20-21
New York Comic Con: Oct. 14-16

Rest in Peace Mr. Jacques

Today's blogpost comes a day early to mark the passing of Brian Jacques, author of the wonderful children's series of Redwall novels. The series focuses on the medieval goings on of generations of animals who live in and around Redwall Abbey. Mr. Jacques was the lead torch holder in keeping anthropomorphic characters alive and prospering after such other greats as Aesop, Rudyard Kipling, & Kenneth Grahame.

Redwall was as much an influence on Mouse Guard as it was an anti-influence. It was while I was developing the ideas for my own group of mouse rangers I was handed the first book in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed Brian's writing, and his gift for including vocal accents into the text. It charged in me even more desire to pursue my love of animal stories and medieval cultures.

However, I knew instantly that I could never top what Mr. Jacques was doing. So when I say his books were a counter influence, I only mean that I had to set out in a different path from what he was already master of.

In honor of a great and prolific author who scouted the road and opened the doors of the modern market for tales of mouse heroes, I humbly thank him and wish his family peace.

above: the trio from Mr. Jacques' 2nd book Mossflower mourning their creator

Em of Appleloft:The character of Em is loosely based on my friend Emily Bastian (married to Jeremy Bastian). Emily loves raising animals & currently has in her care: 2 dogs, 1 cat, 2 sheep, several horses, and 5 ducks. It was the trait of instinctive animal husbandry that I gave to the mouse character Em. (this photo is of Emily last fall encouraging her duck Fleur to flap her wings so I had photo reference for the duck in Black Axe #1)

I started the layout of her home with a top-down cutaway of the apple tree she lives in. I figured a hollowed out knot hole right at the junction of a few branches would give her enough room in a fairly narrow trunked twisty tree. I initially had her bookcase inset in one of the branches...but it looks like I didn't draw it that way in the final version. The other branch nook becomes a sleeping area, with an open knothole in the back of the tree providing a nice window.

I thought about making a quick model of this room before I drew it, but changed my mind, feeling that it wasn't a location I planned on reusing too much, and my top-down sketch mapped out a floor plan for the items I knew I wanted to include. Also I knew I wouldn't make little models of all the furniture, so the model's only real use would be for the room's geometry, which was for the most part, round. Any imperfections I had with the geometry in not making all those concentric circles accurate and in perspective, would only add to the charm of Em's small, quaint, mouse hollowed, home.

I tried to give Em's home the feel of a place Emily herself would live, and filled it with things that relate to Emily's real life interests (taxidermy, gardening, dried flowers, textiles, old books, etc.) which at the same time would start to establish some of Em's character. I also wanted to show Em's love of birds in particular (which I equate to Emily's horses) So Em's bed is less like a bed and more like a nest, she has an unhatched egg in her bookcase, & she has a bird skull (perhaps she studies it for Phrenology)


2011 Appearances
C2E2: March 18-20
Phoenix Comic Con: May 26-29
Cherry Capital Con: June 25-26
San Diego Comic Con: July 20-24
Baltimore Comic Con: Aug. 20-21
New York Comic Con: Oct. 14-16