As promised, I’m including here a layout of The Moles so that you can print it out on your home printer and make your own mini book out of one sheet of paper to carry around in your purse, backpack, or satchel. Click on this image to download a pdf of the layout:

Check out the individual panels in my previous post, The Moles – All Done!

And here are the instructions for making your own The Moles 8-panel book from an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper:

Step 1: Print on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper

I printed on my home inkjet printer, using some semi-nice matte paper. Don’t use anything too heavyweight, otherwise the book won’t fold well. The pdf is 8.5 x 11, so print at 100%. Your finished mini book will be 3.25″ x 2.5″.

Step 2: Trim

(I’m using a blade, but you can use scissors for all the cutting too)

Step 3: Fold in half lengthwise

Step 4: Fold in half the other way

Step 5: Fold in top and bottom to the middle fold line

Step 6: Cut a line in the middle of the paper, using the fold lines as guides

This is what you should get:

Step 7: Fold stuff, making a kind of diamond shape

Step 8: Voila!

Use this technique for making your own mini-books, too. It’s eight panels worth of fun, which is just the right amount of fun for me.

Part 5! Part 5! Part 5! Part 5! Part 5!
Remember, all panels will be done by Sunday, December 20.

Halfway there! I have 4 out of the 8 panels done.

The Moles Comic Part 3 – Illustrator & Photoshop from Andrea Plinky on Vimeo.

Three panels down; five to go!

The second panel of the Moles 8-panel comic. These aren’t in order. Used some placeholder text this time so that you wouldn’t be thinking, “Andrea left a gaping blank space on the left side.” Also, I like that the mole is speaking nonsense Latin.

Check back next Sunday for more moletastic fun.

Gab Danon and I hatched a plan. We’ll create an 8-panel comic that you can print out on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper at your very own home, then fold and cut into a mini book. Gab wrote an awesome story about moles and now I’ll illustrate it. I’ll post a new panel every Sunday. They may not be in order, and I won’t show the copy on the illustrations, so that it can be a surprise when it’s all finished. According to my calculations, that means this should be finished by December 20. Therefore, you could print it out and give it to someone for Christmas or What-Have-You. Here’s the first panel I got done. Definitely click to make larger if you got the time.

Get ready for more!

 These are some doodles that I did while taking breaks at work this week.

Pencil on paper. Cardboard and color added in Photoshop.

I designed a website for a friend from work, Raquel, who is involved with a great non profit: Not Without My Pet. The organization helps victims of domestic violence who own animals. Often, people will delay leaving abusive situations because of not knowing how to take their pets with them, and being worried about their pet’s well-being if they leave the animal behind.

Not Without My Pet aims to help those people by “partnering with domestic abuse shelters to establish pet care facilities.” It’s a wonderful cause, and it was fun to design their site for them. Many thanks to programmer Russ for doing the great programming work on it.

I wanted to include some great pet photos on the site and Raquel was awesome at enlisting her friends’ help – she and her friends amassed a bunch of cute and charming snapshots of their pets. I threw in some of my own too. Check out the screenshots below.

And go look at the new website: www.nwomp.org

Diva’s my parents’ amazing mutt. She is intelligent and soulful and likes contemplating stuff.

Huey’s my parents’ other good dog. He is goofy and funny and is a sparkplug of a tank. He is not named after Huey Lewis and his news.

There’s Bonzai, Gab’s parents’ dog, who is very smart and clever and likes going on hikes.

This is a goat that I met in person. I took his picture. The hot dog type people at the bottom are on their first date. They’re off to an ice cream parlor for a root beer float. The creature in the middle is a kind of lion type thing, but with very slick skin, I would guess.