Calamity Jack Color Map Preview

The team of color mappers has been a HUGE help. They've now been working for about a month. Everyone's moving at a different pace, but the pages are rolling in. As of today Calamity Jack is half-way color mapped.

If you don't know what color mapping is, take a look at my earlier coloring tutorial. Essentially, the team is doing the painstaking job of outlining each color area. Every little hat, braid, brick and cloud has to be carefully traced. The team is doing fantastic work.

The colors used aren't the final colors, so it's been fun to see the different palettes each colorer has. They range from subdued:

To colorful:


To REALLY colorful:
Are those My Little Ponies? What is going on here?

These scenes are all within the same few pages of each other, I love the drastic differences. It'll be sad to mellow everything down to the final color scheme. These color mapped pages will all get the official palette treatment, then have highlights and shadows added.

Last of all, I did an interview for Shannon Hale (one of the authors of Rapunzel's Revenge) you can see it here. Thanks Shannon!

Rapunzel's TODAY SHOW Revenge!

Here's the segment that aired on the TODAY SHOW this morning. Wow! Tremendous job! We didn't get to see the hoped-for "Rokerpunzel," but the wig did get a lot of screen time on one of the kids' heads. Fine work, "Charliepunzel." They picked great, spoiler free pages to highlight, a whole bunch of them. Gotta say, it was weird seeing those drawings on my teevee. 

The story that aired before the book club was called "From Jail to Yale," about a felon who was attending Yale Law School. I was waiting for them to say, "And now from Jail to Yale to HALE." I should write for television.

But let's talk about the real star of the show. Dean! Good grief! He's got star quality! The camera loves that guy. He was as laid back and cool as anyone I've ever seen in a live television situation--including George Clooney! Dean, can I get an 8x10 glossy?

Fantastic job! Thank you Shannon, Dean, Al Roker, Charliepunzel and everyone at the TODAY SHOW.

The Epic Wig Post

This is the week of the wig!


Mindy (Rapunzel letterer, and my wife) spent many, many hours on the wig. I think it looks FANTASTIC! A better representation of Rapunzel's hair than an actual realistic wig. It really captures the illustrated hair look. Here it is in action:

The wig is now on it's way to NYC (Shannon, you better be wearing it on the plane! Or better yet, Dean!) The wig will appear on the TODAY SHOW this friday (Sept. 12, NBC) on Al Roker's Book of the Month segment.

We are crossing our fingers and toes that Al himself will wear the wig. Making it the MOST FAMOUS WIG IN NORTH AMERICA for at least a few hours. Who doesn't want to see Rokerpunzel? I want me some Rokerpunzel!

If you'd like to try making your own Rapunzel wig, Mindy say's the pattern is loosely based on the Hallowig by knitty.com. Good luck!

The Rapunzel's Revenge Launch Party

So today was the big launch party for Rapunzel's Revenge. In the future, I'll announce these type of things before they happen.

Here we are, Hale/Hale/Hale--Team Rapunzel! 

That's me on the left, Shannon in the middle and Dean on the right. I don't think anybody in the picture is wearing a hat that fits. Speaking of hats, get a load of that Rapunzel wig! That was made by the fourth Hale, Mindy, my wife and letterer of the book. Next week I'll do a special post featuring the wig. It deserves its own post.

There was a full panel of YA authors there as well. If you can't read my handwriting, (click on it to embiggen it) they were (from left to right) Kimberly Heuston, Jessica Day George, James Dashner (his head is really that shape) Nathan Hale, Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, Sara Zarr (hiding), Mette Ivie Harrison (hitting the high note in "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother") and Ann Cannon. 

Here they are as THE MAGNIFICENT um, NINE.