End, Reset, and Restart

Last Friday I submitted my last page of pencils for Shatterspin, the second LEGO Ninjago miniseries I did with Skybound. If you include the pages from Garmadon, the first miniseries, that would equate to 248 pages of story and art as well as 12 covers which would account for about 70 to 80 percent of my work output over the last 3 years.

That's alot of LEGO.

Don't get me wrong, working on a LEGO project was a dream come true for me and I'm immensely proud of the work I did and am grateful for the new doors that opened up for me because of these books. But damn, it feels nice to cross the finish line and put the world of Ninjago aside.

For better or for worse, there's no break in the near future however. With my LEGO commitments fulfilled, I can finally turn my attention to some other books that have languished on the side.

Big Dreamers

I believe I've mentioned "Big Dreamers" before in an earlier post but I haven't shared too many details about it yet and I will refrain from saying too much at this point other than to say that it's a fantasy graphic novel for the European market written by Karim Alliane and drawn by myself.

This is actually the first time I've ever drawn someone else's story because I usually prefer to handle the writing duties myself. However, when my editor approached me with the project I just knew I had to be involved. Karim's written such an exciting adventure with kids on bicycles, shadowy monsters, a magical (and nightmarish) dream world... basically all the stuff I like to draw (well, except for the bicycles).

It's a bit of an odd book to describe because the earlier images I've posted implied a very kid friendly adventure but the story definitely takes some darker twists like this intense battle sequence that was inspired Saving Private Ryan.

Now that Ninjago has wrapped up, Big Dreamers will be my primary project. The roughly two hundred paged book is about half finished and I'm hoping to finish the rest by early next year.

The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn Volume Two

The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn Volume One just came out recently but I've already got my hands full working on Volume Two. I've finished the first rough edit for Oscar's final story on Webtoon, "The Ghost of Witch Lake" and most likely I'll need to redraw at least one or two segments for the book and perhaps introduce a couple of new scenes to help the story flow a little smoother with the rest of the book.

Speaking of which, the second of book two will be comprised of entirely new stories! This is what I'M really excited about! I've been waiting years to tell new Oscar Zahn stories and that day is finally here. I'm still in the early stages of planning but I'm excited to start sharing new drawings and designs here on this newsletter.

Reflecting

There's always a bit of a strange period whenever a big project is concluded, and I think Ninjago was the biggest and most arduous project I've ever worked on. I spent the last couple days staring at my desk not exactly what I should be doing or how I should be going about my day.

Writing this blog was actually kind of a nice way to organize the clutter in my mind and it turns out there was alot of clutter because this post has taken me about six hours to write. My mind was quite foggy this weekend, but I think the gears are beginning to turn again.

Thanks for reading,

Tri