doctorbaer

This Saturday, August 3, marks the one-month countdown to the release of The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue, and I’m celebrating with live streams where we can collaborate to make some spooky drawings!

For those who are new to Doctor Baer, he’s a dealer in occult objects. My middle-grade graphic novel is the story of how this spooky archivist learns to become an adventurer when his collection is released into the world. So the objects we make could be items in his collection!

I’ve been making these drawings at various events this summer. All I ask is that you show up with the following:

• A spooky or silly story from your life (I can handle heavy materials, but for the purposes of this live stream I ask that you keep it on the light side)
• A description or picture of a beloved object you own or owned

You can use the form below to send me the info I need to draw your custom cursed object. You can tune into the live stream to watch it come together, and I’ll even mail you the drawing when it’s done.

Next Live Stream is scheduled for August 17 at 3pm EDT!

https://www.youtube.com/@madebykokoro

A piece I worked on during my trip to San Diego for the American Library Association Annual Conference. It was a fun trip where I got to promote Doctor Baer to librarians, reconnect with friends, and check out the San Diego Padres’ baseball park (sadly, they weren’t playing at home that weekend).

It’s feeling like book tour/promo mode is officially underway, and it’s a wild feeling. I’ll have more reflections to share in text and in future Fabulous Secrets microcasts.

My thanks to Chloe Cordero for the color assists on this piece.

As the school year came to a close, and my full-time residencies ended, I excitedly began ramping up development for the next Doctor Baer story.

Here’s our monk leading us to the abbey (formerly a church) hiding a dangerous secret.

I’m continuing to look for ways to streamline the drawing process, and leaning on 3d models seems to be the way to go. Here’s the model of the abbey:

I didn’t build this one, though. I hired a Blender artist to create it and the entire town where the story takes place:

This low-polygon representation won’t be useful for making an animation or video game, but it’s exactly what I need to streamline the process of drawing various scenes in Clip Studio Paint.

I’ll say more about the influences behind the locations as I make more development drawings.