The Happy Robot
2005. Digital collage. 7" x 9"
Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince has always been one of my favorite stories. In 2005 I wrote The Happy Robot—which puts a 21st century spin on the tale—and created a series of digital illustrations for it. The robot (yes, she's crying; she's no longer happy at this point in the story), started as a photo of my daughter Rachel, which I took into Photoshop and manipulated (anyone recognize where her ear came from?). The robot bird was a 3-D model that I created with Infini-D. Other elements include photos of trees, paint spatters and strokes, tree bark, and other fun stuff. Click on the thumbnails below to see more of the illustrations. If you have a Flash plug-in for your browser, you can read the story complete with illustrations (you may have to disable your pop-up blocker to see it). I also created a short animated film narrating the introduction to the story.