Making a jungle

I hope God had as much fun as I am creating the jungle for Kichi in Jungle Jeopardy! (If that sounds sacraligious, it wasn't really meant to be...) It's like a shopping spree, I'm tearing through books, grabbing plants, rivers, flowers, vines, insects, jaguars, monkeys of many kinds, toucans, spiders, snakes (sorry mom, they're in the book), vultures, seaguls, lobsters... if I need a price check when I'm ringing up, my cart of goodies will eat itself!

And, like the owl project, I'm learning all kinds of stuff about the South/Central American rain forest, and I will be able to say everything is from that jungle and not African or Indonesian rain forests (that would've been easier, but I think kids are sharp enough to catch things adults wouldn't). So all my monkeys are "New World" monkeys not the African "Old World" monkeys, and the same for the other animals.

My model for Kichi is the very cute chihuahua Sugar, which is funny because Fortune Teller in the book itself calls Kichi "Sugar" because he doesn't speak Chihuahuan enough to know his name is Kichi. Small world huh?

And I'm enthralled with Mayan art and paintings. Their artwork was really advanced when you compare what other civilizations were doing at the same time miles and miles away. Their way of stylization is really unique and somewhat contemporary looking today. I'm trying to add little accents in tile-like borders and their costuming.

I'm really excited to be working on it, and I may have to reuse what I've learned about the jungle for another project!