Sploosh!

Missile Mouse is caught off guard by a deadly basgus. Though space mice are not a part of the usual diet for a hungry basgus Missile Mouse will do just fine to ease the hunger pains. It's shell is said to be one of the strongest materials in the galaxy. And as such, segments of it's exoskeleton go for the highest dollar on the black market. Consequently, the basgus superior design has caused it be one of the most adaptive species in the galaxy, easily evolving to survive in different extreme environments and climates. There's even word of giant basgus who live in the lava flows of distant planets.



This is a recent commission I did for someone. Since finishing the book it had been a few months since I've drawn MM and I admit I got a little rusty. Below is a video of me drawing this commission. You'll notice I had to erase parts of Missile Mouse a few times before getting it right. If you want one of these original Missile Mouse drawings you can order one here.



Drawing a Missile Mouse Commission from jakeparker on Vimeo.

Star Crusher Cover

Now that Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher is listed on Amazon I thought I'd share the cover process. I had a lot of fun with this cover. Despite the old maxim to never judge a book by it's cover the public at large sets this tidbit of wisdom aside and will usually only pick up what looks cool. With that in mind a lot of folks at my publisher have to approve this cover and make sure it's going to enhance sales instead of hinder them. Despite that there was very little back and forth between us making designing this cover a breeze.

I began with sending them some sketches of possible cover ideas. These were pulled from various scenes in the book.



Scholastic liked the one with the alien bursting through the ground and asked me to develop that further. I drew up three more designs and sent them over.

After seeing those they decided to just stick with the original idea and I went ahead and inked it. I inked the background separate from Missile Mouse so my art director Phil Falco would have more freedom in designing and placing the title.

With inks finished and approved I colored it. Below is the color I sent to them. They liked it but felt it was a little too dark for a kids book. A couple color adjustments were made and if you want to see the final for print click over to the link on amazon here.

RIP Fighter

The Rogue Imperium of Planets (RIP) in partnership with Cephalodian Defense Systems (CDS) developed this space fighter for escort missions. It's light and agile with a respectable armament of two 50mm blaster canons. In the Star Crusher, Missile Mouse faces off against two of these with nothing but a grappling hook, some rope, an interplanetary ballistic missile, and his wits.



Because of the complex shape and my looming deadline I got a friend of mine from Blue Sky to model this craft for me based on my sketch and ortho drawings. He then positioned the model according to my roughs and gave me screen grabs which I in turn drew over. Thanks again for your help Dave!

And here it is in action!

Dagger Bike

One of Missile Mouse's simple pleasures is the Kraxzon DB2. Now considered a classic speeder, it can still stand it's ground against it's modern equivalent: the DB7. This is in part due to MM's obsessive drive to keep in top condition. He's also upgraded a few components to increase performance giving it a top airspeed of 600mph. Which makes it the obvious ride choice when you've overslept your alarm and are late to your mission briefing.



Artist's note: I had an extra long skinny piece of bristol, so I wanted to design something to fit the paper. Fun experiment. Try it some time. Get a odd shaped clipping and design an object that fits that space.

Ideology of Madness Interview

I was recently contacted by Paul from Ideology of Madness, a fine blog about all things cool. Paul had the mad, mad I tell you, idea of "Mice With Weapons Week" and asked if I wouldn't mind doing a little Missile Mouse interview for it. You can read the interview here: Mice With Weapons Week AFTERMATH: Interview with Missle Mouse Creator Jake Parker. Go check it out, and along with the interview is a little sneaky peak of some of the pages from the book.

Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher is FINISHED!

Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher is finished! What an adventure this has been. I feel like Frodo returning to the shire. I actually went to bed at 10:30 last night! Below is a screen grab of all 172 pages colored and finished. In the coming weeks I'll post a few of these pages bigger so you can see them better. I'm really happy with how it all came out. This is by far the biggest project I've ever tackled and though it was brutal at times I enjoyed every step of the journey. Star Crusher will be out in January of '10 so put that on your calendar. I wish it was sooner, but such is the world of publishing.

Also, I just bought my plane tickets to San Diego so that means I'm officially going to Comic-Con this year. If you want to meet up or say hi I'll be at the Flight booth probably. I'll have more details as we approach the convention.

Major props go out to all those who helped me on this book. Specifically, Anthony Wu, and Jason Caffoe who assisted me on coloring the thing and Katie Smith who corrected all my spelling errors. Also, Tom Saville, and Mike Lee who lent their helping hands on coloring chores as well. Dave Strick who did a little spaceship modeling for me (more on that later). And Kohl Glass with general story advice. Thanks guys!

And of course, I could not have done this book with out the tremendous help and support of my wife, friend, and the goddess of our home, Alison. She's basically gone without a husband for the past year and wants you all to buy this book so it will have been worth it!

Ok, I'm going to live life a little this weekend and then it's on to book 2!

Character Profile - Agent Hyde

This next character profile introduces a key player in the Missile Mouse universe: Agent Hyde.

Agent Hyde is a Junior Agent in the Galactic Security Agency. As I mentioned in the Missile Mouse Profile, GSA rank is signified by space suit color. Missile Mouse being a Senior agent with a special "Solo" status is given the colors yellow and red. Junior Agents wear orange and blue. This coloring system may have to do with my countless hours of playing with Lego Spacemen. As a Junior agent Hyde is not authorized to go on any mission alone and must be paired with another agent.

Agent Hyde was born into an upper class family of galactic politicians. Hyde was the last son of a powerful Galactic Union Senator. Overshadowed by zealous brothers all vying for power as future galactic officials Hyde realized early on he could never achieve what they could. He became disenchanted with politics and decided that if he was truly going to make a difference in the galaxy he had to get down to work with his own hands.

My first couple of design passes left him looking too young, and too cute. I decided to scratch these and went ahead and designed the drawing at top.