Illustrator Spotlight: Teo Skaffa

    As I've said before, one of the coolest perks of writing a book is getting to work with artists. When I wrote The Thin House, the most exciting part wasn't the release date, finishing the final draft, or even seeing my name in the by line. The part of the process that really blew me away was seeing characters I'd created come to life in illustration. As I continue to produce more books, I want to try to occasionally spotlight the art and artists my work touches. I wanted to start with the very talented Teo Skaffa. 
   Teo Skaffa is an Istanbul-based Dutch freelance illustrator. I originally stumbled on his work when the artwork I intended to use couldn't work digitally (see Dedication Art). I was searching for potential artists and I stumbled on the piece featured to the right called'Dude just go up and ask for the Wi-Fi password'. This piece totally captured the eerie/folksy tone I was looking for for The Thin House cover. I started going through his portfolio and I discovered other pieces I fell in love with like 'The Wild Card Bandits' seen below. 

"Dude just go up and ask for the Wi-Fi password" Created and owned by Teo Skaffa.

"The Wild Card Bandits" Created and owned by Teo Skaffa.

   I knew I wanted to work with Teo, and our first project together was actually creating the Jackalope Stories Logo. I wanted something that captured the contemplative, earnest, and offbeat vibe that I try to cultivate in my stories. Also since the logo served as the first depiction of Chester I really wanted him to capture the cute but weirdly edgy personality of a character that will appear in some way in each of the books that make up the main series.
   The end result was better than anything I could have hoped for. Teo perfectly captured the character of Chester, and created a logo that perfectly encapsulates the Jackalope Stories world. As positive an experience as creating the logo was, I was unprepared for how exciting and creative the cover design process proved to be.

   It was a collaborative experience, and Teo was incredibly intuitive. I found the process to be similar to my own writing, where you start by essentially building the skeleton of a story and gradually put meat on the bones. I can't tell you how exciting it was to see the artwork begin to take shape, but to give you a sense of where we came from I thought it would be fun to share some of the different stages which you can see below.

   It was wonderful seeing this world I spent so much time developing come to life visually. Teo's use of atmosphere and textures helped really nail the ethereal warmth and folksy charm I wanted to permeate The Thin House. I was very fortunate to work with someone so talented, but also so accommodating and hardworking on my first book. There was a lot of formatting and re-formatting that was necessary to submit the story for publication and Teo always brought solutions. I truly can't imagine delivering a product of this quality without him. 

   I'm currently working on the second and third book in the Jackalope Stories Saga. Ever since Teo created The Thin House cover, I've been eagerly anticipating what he comes up with for future corners of the world in which I spend an increasingly large amount of time. Even when he isn't working on projects with me, Teo is always creating something worth viewing. I highly recommend you check out more of his work on his website. 
   Visual art plays a big part in my writing either directly or as inspiration, and I hope to share more of these spotlight articles in the future. Until next time!