Mystery!
I was recently asked about the first book character I remember finding myself attached to, and without hesitation I answered “Nate the Great, the kid detective.” While much of that connection was undoubtably due to his fantastic name, it also gave me my first taste of the whodunit, and it was good. Very, very good.
From there, I naturally fell into Encyclopedia Brown, then the Hardy Boys, then later, Holmes, Spade, and Marlowe. I played Clue, kept photocopies of the original Sherlock Holmes illustrations, and obsessed over the mind-blowing animated intro to Mystery! by Edward Gorey (which I still haven’t gotten over).
You could say I had a thing for mysteries, and I still do.
So, when I was I asked to illustrate a mini-mysteries book for Sterling, I nearly did a backflip in my desk chair. The book follows an uncle/nephew sleuthing duo as they solve various everyday puzzles around them.
It was great working on the project with Lauren Rille, Scott Piehl and Mina Chung. I would also like to point out that the fantastic pulpiness of the cover design is all thanks to Mina’s magic touch.
Here are a few samples of the interior illustrations I did for the book.
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:54 am
I love this!
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:37 am
and it totally makes more sense that the uncle would have blue eyes & all that recessive gene stuff and the nephew brown, not the other way around. this looks awesome
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:41 am
love the black and white drawings the best… Great job man!
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:35 am
Yay a new post! These illustrations are superb!!
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Thanks for the comments, everyone! I seriously need to post more often.
June 9th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Awesome work.drawings are great. I especially like the last piece. leads the eye very naturally.
Keep updating us with great works.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Nice!
Love the stoop picture with the intimidatingly beautiful lady and sinister half-concealed cat.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:50 am
These are incredible Nathan, I’m speechless. Beautiful.
June 12th, 2009 at 9:37 am
“Illustrated by Nathan Huang”! So awesome! Great job cuz! I love your art style. I’m thinking of buying a copy from Amazon just to show it off to my friends hehe. How do I get a copy in Taiwan? LOL!
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Super nice!
July 21st, 2009 at 3:57 pm
man nathan, you never cease to amaze me by your crazy skillz