Last fall I was approached by Houghton-Mifflin about possibly doing a Curious George project. They were looking for an artist who could replicate the style of H.A. Rey, the writer/artist who created Curious George. This is what I submitted. (EDIT: The images have been removed at Houghton-Mifflin’s request until their Curious George project is completed.)
It’s not uncommon for larger publishers to approach several different artists at once and then pick their favorite for a project. In this case, ultimately a different artist was chosen. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all.
Someone recently wrote me asking if it is hard to land a job working with licensed characters. Well, this marks the fifth time in my career I’ve been approached to work on a major licensed character, but each time either the project fizzled or another artist was ultimately chosen. Hopefully 2007 will be my year!