Autographed Benjamin Buttons

With enough of you bibliophiles seemingly interested in owning an autographed copy of Benjamin Button, I've made them available in the store for pre-order. So feel free to order yourself a copy. But, if you need some art to get your book-owning juices aroused, then by all means continue reading.

The Light Of Day

As I have mentioned before, I did quite a lot of research and drawing for Benjamin Button. Originally, some of this art was to be included in the book itself. But as it turns out, we didn't really have enough room. Luckily, this website is a fine venue for the Showing of Things, and so today I figured I'd share some of the concept art.

Benjamin Button Concept Art

One of the first problems I tackled when I started work on the book was designing Benjamin. On the surface, this seemed difficult. The story bounces between moments of humor, and moments of sadness, and for the most part, the old Benjamin was designed for comedic value, but as he... uh... youngened he needed to be dashing and handsome, able to convey callousness and vanity, yet still be likeable.

So what I did first was design an old, rather grumpy and odd-looking Benjamin, and then age that character backwards. I lucked out in that I was very happy with the results early on, and didn't need to really explore much further than the Benjamins you see above.

Benjamin Button Concept Art

When I was approached by Quirkbooks, they already knew they wanted the final art in watercolor, Lester, Bow & Fiddle being the prime example of the style. This scared the crap out of me, chiefly because a graphic novel composed of such tight watercolors would take me... oh... seventeen years. But after talking it out, we agreed to sort of a watercolor/pencil hybrid style. Knowing that, I wanted to work up the roughs in a style that was quick, but would also allow the Quirkbooks staff to see how it could translate to watercolor. The page above is really just me practicing that rough style, before any work was done.

Benjamin Button Concept Art

My favorite part of the concept art process, without a doubt, is creating characters. Here's a smattering of portraits for various book characters. Truth be told, I rarely had an opportunity to draw characters with such detail as you see here; the small format really only gave me enough room for a pair of dark eye sockets, a shadow under the nose, and a mouth in most panels. But still, it's best to have a fully fleshed-out character which you then simplify when it comes to the actual panel art.

Benjamin Button Concept Art

As I also mentioned before, I had to spend a lot of time researching period dress. The page above explores some of those different eras. Of particular interest to me when I was doing research was seeing how drastically women's fashion seemed to change around that 1910 era. Makes me think that there's still a chance we might all be wearing unisex silver jumpsuits by 2010, like they predicted in the fifties. Fingers crossed!

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