Easter Eggs & Behind the Scenes of 100 Mighty Dragons
100 Mighty Dragons All Named Broccoli hits shelves TODAY!
1. The Epic Title Page
This is one of my favorite spreads from the book. I just love the dragons that circle around all the text and title page. My favorite set of dragons from the whole book are the ones right underneath the title that are just chillaxing on sun chairs. Oh how I wish to be a dragon chilling in the sun on a cliff. Also, since Adam is a huge chess fanatic, I made sure the chess pieces on the board actually make sense!
2. Rock & Roll Dragons
Since I live in New York, I had a blast painting this one. And YES, I know that no subways actually cross the top of the Brooklyn Bridge, but this is a picture book so I am allowed to take liberties. Wait a minute… I JUST realized as I was typing this I forgot to letter ‘IRON DRAGON” on the drum. Oh no. That was one of my favorite jokes… Whoops!
3. Dragon Transformations
The first sketch for this page ended up having some changes made for clarity. I had to change the dragon from two headed to one headed because they were worried that it might confuse readers as to whether to count a two headed dragon as one dragon or two.
This is the first spread that I painted and it is by far still my favorite. The energy in the painting is so good and something I struggled to capture in the rest of the spreads to be quite honest. There’s just something about the way you can feel the brushstrokes in each dragon that I just adore.
4. A Dragon Feast
I still LOVE this first sketch. However, there’s one teeny tiny joke that was ultimately veto-ed because they were worried it wasn’t appropriate. Can you guess which it was?
Yup. It was the knight being carried to be grilled! Unfortunately they decided that it would be better to change it into something more… palatable for readers. I still think the joke is really really funny though and in my head these dragons totally eat knights with a side of BBQ sauce.
Okay this spread has tons of easter eggs and was so much fun to work on. For this spread, I was allowed to just do what I wanted with no notes from the author so of course I went to town.
Here are some easter eggs:
1. Tacos!
If I was doing a book about dragons, there was no way I wasn’t going to pay homage to the greatest dragon book of the last decade. So behold: a dragon eating tacos with “totally not hot” hot sauce.
2. A Reference to the Best Movie Ever
That’s right fellas. There is a Shrek reference in this book because I couldn’t help myself. I was trying to think of things that were gross that dragons would eat and of course my mind went immediately to Shrek. This scene where Shrek makes himself dinner and sits down to enjoy a night alone is one of my favorite scenes from any movie. I think about it every time I cook myself food and sit down to eat it alone at home with a nice cup of wine and some good music in the background.
3. Dragon Bake Off
I was watching a lot of British Bake Off during this time (as I usually am every year) so it was natural of me to include a little heart stopping cake moment in this spread.
Also, every time I look at this one dragon rolling out dough, I think of Jurgen. I think the resemblance is weirdly there? Do you see it or is it just me?
And that’s it for today folks!
I’m off to celebrate a very fiery dragon filled day and I’ll be back soon with some more dragon related posts soon. Perhaps even a PRINT launch?? Wow!
Once again, you can order a signed copy here or if you don’t want a signed copy you can order it here instead.
Thanks for the support :)