Monday, March 31, 2008

Beebo The (TV) Martian - Illustration

After ignoring the shouts of my body to "please go to bed," I am posting the next illustration to correlate with Chapter 2: Mission to Mars and Chapter Three: Television on Mars. Lucas was sitting by me as we translated Beebo from our imaginations onto paper. I erased many times to meet with approval. A successful collaboration, as always.

We are planning to post 1 more illustration for Chapters 4 and 5, and then the goal is to submit an illustration with each new chapter, which is in draft mode already. Really! -- Enjoy. :-)

Beebo

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Images of Fred and Chloe - Fresh From Our Imaginations

About a month ago, I sat down to draw what I thought Fred and Chloe might look like. After producing a drawing, I got corporate approval from Lucas. To quote, "That is just what I was thinking," Lucas said. After much troubles trying to translate the drawing into digital format, I finally did it with an online software called Vector Magic.

To make a long story short. Fred and Chloe images are available for your viewing pleasure. See below. I see a book deal coming. :-) Let me know what you think.

Fred


Chloe

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Chapter Five: The Talking Fish and the Dome City

The Team’s luck held fast. They landed and bounced 2 or 3 times before they stopped. Fred had forgotten that Saturn was mostly made up of gas. Fred giggled to himself. It’s always funny to think of something full of gas. Scientists on Earth had never known if Saturn had any hard surfaces, only gas (ha ha) – but it had a bouncy surface

With the excitement of the landing over, the team put on their space suits and jumped to the ground – bouncing uncontrollably and running right into a tall, purple alien. The alien was shocked and shivered with fear. To it, they all looked like they had no faces, because they wore special space helmets to help them breath. The alien was so scared, that when Fred tried to talk to it, it ran. It ran and screamed, waived its tentacles, ran some more and screamed even louder. The team watched, not knowing what to do, but decided to follow the alien until they came upon a huge clear, dome that sheltered a small city. They were amazed, and the adventurers in them could

When the team came to the entrance of the dome, they were met by thousands of curious, round, purple faces, with tentacles moving on the ground like grass that blows in the breeze on Earth. Fred decided to pull his face shield up to show them his smiling face and that he meant no harm. He asked the rest of the team to do the same. The crowd got quiet and the one that ran away earlier, walked towards them and extended a tentacle, which held a small fish. A fish!?! With his tentacle shaking (he was still scared), the purple Saturnite motioned to Fred to put the fish in his ear. Now, this was getting really weird. But Fred was determined to keep his team safe and to make new friends. So he did as they asked, and put the fish into his ear.

It was the weirdest feeling ever! Just imagine having a little fish moving around in your ear. Really gross! Slowly, like when you turn up the sound of a TV, he began to understand all the little murmurs coming from the crowd – the fish was a talking fish! The same alien introduced himself to Fred. “My name is T-bone, ” it said. “And we are the Super Duper Purple Aliens of Saturn Sector 512.” When Fred spoke, they all understood him – because they had talking fish in their ears too. Fred introduced himself and his team, telling them the story of his adventures. The team was given talking fish too, and soon the city was buzzing with excited chatter. The Saturnites were planning a great party to celebrate the arrival of the Earthlings.

Written by Jodi Pereira and Lucas Pereira

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Chapter Four: The Icy Rings of Saturn

The trip would be a long one. Saturn is about 746 million miles away from Mars – more peanut butter and banana sandwiches than Fred could count. But Fred had new friends on the space ship to keep him company and he and Beebo created a special code to talk to each other. They all liked watching Beebo’s TV too. No one had ever seen so many episodes of the Power Rangers! By the time Fred’s team approached Saturn, everyone was quite sick of eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches and Beebo used his incredible TV assembly skills to install one on the space ship.

Saturn was soooo mysterious and the rings were like no other planet in the solar system. But Fred also knew that the rings were just as dangerous as they were magnificent because they are filled with icy water pieces made of all different shapes and sizes. And don’t forget about all the moons. At least 60 have been given names and some orbit Saturn within the rings that surround the great planet. Fred had to concentrate on his driving, and Chloe paid close attention to the ships navigation, constantly barking course changes to Fred.

They were not disappointed. At every turn, another clump of ice threatened to tear their ship apart. And each time, Fred and Chloe managed to avoid one without a scratch. But they had not counted on an undiscovered small moon in their path. It was more like a huge piece of uneven rock rather than round like our moon and it was as big as a school bus. Fred thought fast, he knew they were going to hit the moon, so he concentrated on avoiding a major collision. With expert steering and navigation barks from Chloe, Fred slid the space ship to scrape alongside the moon without hitting it head on. The impact jolted everyone out of their seats, and as Fred struggled to maintain control, the ship creaked and complained about the wounds it was getting. When the sounds finally stopped, the team checked the ship for damage and found that it was still in working order, but in much need of repair. Fred breathed a great sigh of relief. He was a very good pilot indeed. His dad would have been proud.

Once they cleared the last ring, Fred landed the space ship with hardly a sound, which seemed curious to Fred. He quickly realized that they were not on solid ground at all, and the space ship began to fall helplessly down toward Saturn. Maybe their luck had finally run out.

Written by Jodi Pereira and Lucas Pereira

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Chapter Three: Television on Mars

Fred stood next to the strange Martian, considering his next move. But before he had the chance to decide, Chloe began howling like crazy at the sky. Fred looked up and spotted a meteor plummeting towards the very spot where they were standing. The little Martian grabbed Fred, Chloe and Rover with its antennae and pulled them into its cave to escape from harm – just in time. There was a loud, blasting noise and the whole cave shook from the impact. But there was no damage and everyone was safe. Fred squinted in the dark and suddenly found himself face to face with the smallest of the Martians. “Beebo,” it said in a strange, nasally voice. “Beebo,” it repeated, until Fred realized that it was saying its name. Fred smiled, and pointing to his chest said, “Fred.”

With the introductions made, Beebo and the other Martians led the earthlings deeper into the cave where light suddenly appeared from the glow of thousands of television sets. Televisions! And these were not any normal televisions, they were made out of toasters and other junk that floated around space and dropped down to Mars. Fred guessed that the missing parts from Rover were probably Martian TV sets now. All of the televisions were picking up signals from Earth playing the Martians favorite show, the Power Rangers.

Fred and Chloe stayed for a few days getting to know Beebo and collecting samples of little bugs and other small creatures he found on Mars. On the third day, Fred announced his plans to explore Saturn next and invited Beebo to go with them. The little Martian was very pleased at the invitation and quickly packed a few personal items – televisions of course! Rover also planned to go as soon as Beebo reassembled him with his missing parts.

As their space ship prepared to launch, all of the Martians gathered around the ship and began hopping up and down, their antennae waiving like arms to say goodbye. Beebo waived goodbye from the side window. It was sad to leave its friends, but excited to join the adventures of Fred and Chloe as they headed toward the great rings of Saturn.


Written by Jodi Pereira and Lucas Pereira

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Chapter Two: Mission to Mars

Space was such a big, big place. Everywhere Fred and Chloe looked, they saw endless stars and Earth kept getting smaller and smaller, and farther and farther away. Fred felt a little nervous. He missed his mom and dad already, but he was determined to be a brave little astronaut. Everyone on Earth was counting on Fred to discover new places and new life in our solar system and he did not want to let them down.

Fred and Chloe passed much of their time playing Go Fish and making Fred’s favorite snack - peanut butter and banana sandwiches. These are a lot more fun to make in space than on Earth, and more messy too! After 100 sandwiches and 200 games of Go Fish, Fred and Chloe looked out of their window and spotted a large orange planet. It was Mars and they were approaching fast! They quickly readied the ship to land and Chloe barked the touchdown sequence. The landing was very bouncy, but the ship held fast and Fred and Chloe safely touched down on Mars. They were now officially the first Earth boy and dog to land on Martian soil.

Fred opened the door of his spaceship and looked out onto Mars. It looked just like the pictures taken by NASA’s robot Rover. The air was very dry, rocks littered the ground and they could see mountains and craters everywhere. On the closest crater, only a few hundred feet a way, Fred spotted Rover and ran to introduce himself and Chloe. Rover was very glad to see them. Even though he was just a robot, Rover was getting lonely on Mars all by himself and he needed someone to help him find some parts that mysteriously went missing while he slept at night.

Suddenly, Fred saw movement out of the corner of his eye. As he moved closer, he began to see what looked like hundreds of little worms waiving in the distance. Fred and Chloe moved even closer and to their complete amazement, discovered dozens of skinny, green aliens peeking out from holes on the side of the crater. Each one had two antennae on the top of their heads, one large eye and three toes. They were the coolest (and the only) aliens Fred had ever seen. He had done it! He had discovered life on another planet. But Fred had yet to find out whether these Martians were friend or foe.

Written by Jodi Pereira and Lucas Pereira

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Chapter One: Fred and Chloe Go to Space

Fred sat in a field looking up into the sky with his dog Chloe, a white golden doodle, laying next to him. It was not an unusual scene – many boys sit with their dogs peering at the sky daydreaming. But Fred was not daydreaming. He was going through the detailed plans in his head for the rocket ship he had almost finished. He hoped to leave Earth by his 5th birthday, which was only a few weeks away.

After dinner, Fred and his dad looked at a map of the solar system to help him decide where to go first. Fred really wanted to go to Jupiter. It is, after all, the biggest and coolest planet in the solar system. But Fred’s dad thought it would be better to start with Mars because it was so close and the United States had already had 2 successful robot missions. So Mars it was!

On May 29, Fred turned 5 years old. The sky was clear and the wind was calm. It was the perfect day to launch into space. Together, he and Chloe carefully checked their flight plans and made sure they had enough snacks to last them for at least a few weeks and a working radio for regular parent check-ins. They were ready!

At exactly 11:42 A.M., Fred and Chloe lifted off into space. With a great blast of their rocket boosters they moved quickly toward the blue sky, waiving excitedly to mom and dad. The voyage had begun and Mars was the first stop of many in the adventures of Fred and Chloe.

Written By Jodi Pereira and Lucas Pereira