Search for Illustrations for WHEN I WAS A CHEF, I HAD A PIRATE CREW

Have you ever dreamed of seeing your artwork in a book? Have you wished you could illustrate a children's picture book? If you are twenty or younger and you'd like to try to do just that, this is your chance! Make sure you read the search rules carefully and get your submissions in on or before the deadline!

Illustration Search Rules

We have room for lots of illustrations and will prepare at least two editions of When I Was a Chef, I Had a Pirate Crew. One edition will feature each age-group winner. Another edition will feature both of the overall finalists. One of those two finalists will be chosen by the people. The other, by Cap'N Hugh "Strongback" Golly.

If you are twenty or younger, you may enter our search for illustrations for the children's picture book: When I Was a Chef, I Had a Pirate Crew. If your twenty-first birthday happens to fall before the end of the contest, and you want to participate, make sure to get your entry to us before your birthday.

Age Groups:

0-4 years old

5-9 years old

10-13 years old

14-16 years old

17-20 years old

In the event that we do not have enough submissions to support so many age groups divisions, we will consolidate them, seeking to be considerate of our entrants' developmentally appropriate abilities.

To participate, please choose three illustrations and submit them by October 5^th and 12^th (see below). Send high quality digital files to the email address below. We still want hard copies, too! So, make sure to make high quality copies with waterproof ink and send them to the P.O. Box address below… unless you don't mind giving us your originals. We will not return either high quality hard copies or originals, so make sure you send what you're most comfortable sending and not getting back.

Addresses for Submissions

Email to which you send digital files: toriforrealgollihugh@gmail.com

Address to which you send hard copies: 

Cap'N Hugh Strongback Golly

P.O. Box 293

Elkhart, TX 75839

Deadline for Submissions

For digital files, sent to our email address: have them to us by October 5, 2016, then make sure to send hard copies so they reach us on time.

For hard copy sent to our P.O. Box, have them to us by October 12, 2016.

Your Information

In the subject of the email, include your name and age. In the body of the email, include your first and last name, age with birth date following it, the number (found below) for each illustration you're submitting, and your postal address.

On the back of each illustration, in the bottom right corner, in this order, include the following:

First and last name

Age with birth date

Number of the illustration the illustration you are writing on is meant to fulfill

Email Address

Postal Address

Sizes for Illustrations We Seek

So, you think this is an awesome opportunity, right!? We sure hope so because that's why we're doing it!! Allow me to explain the size/type of illustration described below.

Double to Edge: Noted as DE, this kind of illustration is like two 8.5x11 pieces of printer paper put together at the short end. Imagine holding that as a book so that the longest part is horizontal (landscape printing on most printers).  If you were to open our book, you would see a continuous illustration through the crease where the book folds.  Make sure to leave space in your artwork on both pages of it so the pages can be bound and not cutoff any of your illustration.

Single Full: Noted as SF, this illustration covers one page (8.5x11) from edge to edge and top to bottom when our book is opened.  Make sure any background color goes all the way to the edge of the page on this kind of illustration.

Single Character: Noted as SC, this sort of illustration shows one character doing something. 8.5x11 pages are still going in the book with the long edge horizontal, so make sure your illustration works with that.  The illustration does not go to the edge of the page of our book, so the requested illustration can be surrounded by color, but it doesn't go to the edge of the page.  Sort of like the background color makes a cloud around the illustration.

Vignettes: Notes as V. For our purposes, three small illustrations that show a progression of things described in our story.  The background color for each forms a sort of cloud around the main image, but doesn't connect to the other two.  Each illustration exists as its own entity, but work together on an 8.5x11 held horizontal.

The illustrations we seek:

Now, keep in mind that you really need to know the story you're illustrating. If you haven't heard it yet, please watch HERE. The following descriptions will help you know the base requirements for each illustration, but as you hear the story after you've read the descriptions, you'll surely have some ideas that these descriptions will not provide.

In many/most of the illustrations, we want to see a restaurant kitchen. This will require some research on your part. Do you want to show a huge facility or a Mom and Pop kinda restaurant kitchen? It's really up to you. What you decide will build and provide a basis for the character of your illustrations and you'll need to be consistent because if you win either of the top finalists' spots, you'll get to do more illustrations to finish out the book!

1. DE: show your restaurant kitchen with the dish machine in the foreground. This dish machine is blowing bubbles, as per the story. Make sure you show the spilled stuff described in the story.

2. DE: show 8-10 piratey looking guys as if posing for a picture in your restaurant kitchen.

3. DE: show some of the same guys as in number 2, working at their stations. (In many restaurant kitchens there are various stations. In Cap'N Hugh's restaurant kitchen, there are at least the following stations: saute, fry, grill, salads and soups, and expediter.)

4. SC: Frodo trying to hide his feet. Remember Frodo from the story? If not, listen to it again.

5. SF: Frodo hiding his flask while he works.

6. V: A.) Frank, who maybe looks less piratey than the others. B.) Vicks. C.) Cap'N Hugh cutting onions with no tears thanks to what Frank helped him learn in the story, perhaps remembering doing it tearfully.

7. SF: Frank out with customers in the dining room. This is why Frank should not look as rough as the other pirates. He and the waiter should look pretty similar. Both a bit of a pretty-boy-looking piratey guys… clean shaven and actually looking clean.

8. DE: Stacy looking at the Cap'N and others like they are weird. An imagination bubble from Stacy showing an “off-grid homestead” in it.

9. DE: David working the fry station.

10. SC: Cap'N Hugh with an expression of the kind of glee described in the story and David working in the background while keeping an eye on the Cap'N.

11. SC: Waiter drinking what he drank in the story.

12. SF: Chris and other pirates singing in the kitchen.

13. SC: Tink as described in the story, with other pirates around him looking perplexed.

14. DE: Tink working in the kitchen, imagining himself surrounded by many ladies

15. SC: delivery trucks pulling up at the back of the restaurant

16. SC: Cap'N paying delivery guy; food in the background made to looking like a gem/treasure trove

17. DE: Cap'N Hugh looking proud in his kitchen with some crew in the background working

18. DE: Cap'N and crew working in the kitchen; looking like they are going through a storm

19. DE: Cap'N comforting a group of small children sitting around as he holds the closed book that he's just finished reading to them: When I Was a Chef, I Had a Pirate Crew.

Contest Part

As we receive submissions and as soon as we arrive at the deadline, we will organize the illustrations and provide a way for all to see them so that folks can vote on which they think should appear in our books. 

We will have an age group finalist for each group, based on votes as well as an overall finalist based on votes. We will also have another overall finalist chosen by Cap'N Hugh. 

The two overall finalists will be asked to draw additional illustrations to fill out a complete edition between the two of them! Thus, the age group winners will appear in one edition and the overall finalists in another.

Payment to Illustrators

Payments for illustrations will be based on sales. Those whose illustrations make it into an edition will receive payment. Each illustrator whose art will be published will receive exclusive information about sales and how much they will be paid based on them. We hope for great sales of both editions so our illustrators will make good money for their work.

Make sure to subscribe to the Cap'N's YouTube channel so you can receive updates about the progress of the contest and learn of future opportunities, too.

We do have another piratey book for which we'll need illustrations!