Meet Tango. This bird likes to party, and loves being the center of attention even more!

We’ve been working on my big boy’s reading skills, and he’s been struggling to focus on some of the stories in his workbook. To be perfectly frank, they’re not really stories so much as exposition on a particular topic. What’s exposition, you ask? In a word…boring! So I thought I’d write a few silly stories of my own for him to read!

Here’s the first little section. I’ll have it finished and post the complete story with the next critter of the month. Keep in mind this is for a beginning reader, so some sight words and words that he can sound out lol 😀

Making progress…

I must say it’s been a very productive month!

On the good side, I’ve been drawing a lot and having a lot of fun with the Jurassic Insect series on Fossil Fridays.

On the not-so-good side, the series turned out to be quite a bit more than I expected, so that took up a lot of time I could have used for the collection. (and updating Tango, he really needs one. Ah well, at least his box matches the others now 🙂 )

On the plus side of that though, knowing I have so little time has actually made me more productive, lol. I wanted to have some progress made by the end of the month so I could update my little chart and show you, so the time crunch actually inspired me to get more done! And that’s even with drawing, inking, and coloring at least 5 bugs a week (not to mention all the research concerning said bugs), instead of the usual 1 critter featured on Fossil Friday! 

Making progress at a more “normal” pace should be easy once I get the insect series done. 😀 I’ll wait to do the creepy crawlies that are not insects (spiders, scorpions, and the like) for later. I’ve been itching to draw more dinosaurs again, and I want to get to the Morrison Formation. 😀

I hope you liked the beginnings of Tango’s little story. 🙂

I got so frustrated with Joey’s schoolbook. I understand that it’s meant to help him learn about certain things, like picking out nouns, or learning about what characters or setting are, but surely they could make up something a little more interesting. so I had a bit of fun the other day making up a story about Tango and a Hunter, and how Tango flew up into a huge pine tree…

Only Archaeopteryx didn’t have any neighbor dinosaurs aside from Compsognathus. Pterosaurs flew overhead, lots of them, but they weren’t interested in Tango for lunch. Another problem, no shrubs taller than 10 feet! So my idea of towering trees was wrong too lol. That’s why I research, and I changed the story to fit Tango’s home environment. The first story I wrote can feature another dino that fits better.

That’s the thing about writing stories. People tend to think they materialize out of thin air just as they appear in the book, but that’s not true at all. Sometimes the entire story can change into something that isn’t like the original “first draft” at all! Even short little stories like this one. It’s just 10,000 times easier to spot mistakes and make changes with a shorter story than a 50,000 word novel. 😀

I had a lot of fun coloring this one too. I tried to paint just like I would with watercolors. No erasing, no layers, no white, and limited colors. I quite like how it turned out! Ironically, this is actually closer to the style I envisioned for the original picture book than what the critter profile images are. I may have to experiment more to figure out what I really want to do with the picture book. 🙂 This way would certainly be faster!

Thank you so much for stopping by! It really means a lot to me, and it’s great to have this so I can hold myself accountable. 🙂

Coming Oct. 1st…

This little guy is often said to be no bigger than a chicken, but he doesn’t mind the mix-up, he’s just happy to see you!

Share your guess in the comments! He’s one of the critters over on the critter page. 🙂