Illustrating Children’s Books: Creating Final Art!

For part one of this series, click here; for part two, click here …

Now comes the magical time when you actually start producing final art for the book. It is a heady time! Some of the euphoria is tempered by all the seemingly nit-picky “rules” illustrators need to follow.

As you can imagine, printing books is a pretty exacting affair, so margins, sizes, etc. must be correct. For most people, this probably isn’t an issue, but it is a struggle for me. It pays to double-check to make sure your page is going to fit properly into the book’s format. Your publisher will provide you with all the information you need in this regard.

Putting everything together to start final art

Using your storyboard, character studies, and book dummy you are now ready to begin making pages. I tend to go in order from page one to page last, but this isn’t necessary. You need to remember to leave space for the text – obviously that area needs to be clear of the image, pattern, etc, which might make the text difficult to read. You will not be responsible for placing the text on the page, but you do need to leave the space and make it acceptable for the addition of the text.

My process is to draw the image at full size on a separate, light-weight (cheap) paper. This way I can work out any drawing/composition issues on “scratch” paper before I transfer it to the final paper I will use for the art. If, in your wrestling with design/drawing/composition, you have made any significant changes to what you had portrayed in your storyboard, you should show these changes to your art director. Nobody wants surprises when they see final art. This takes more time, but it’s a good step. Also, as a practical matter, you don’t want a lot of erasures or stray pencil lines marring your final-art paper.

When the drawing on the light-weight paper is done to my satisfaction, I transfer it to the final paper using a graphite paper transfer method. I won’t go into detail about this here, but the principle is the same as using carbon paper to make copies on a typewriter – consult a history book if you’re a youngster.

Some of the designs you’ve created for the story may very well span across two facing pages of the book. These are called “double-spreads” and can present some challenges to the illustrator. You have to allow for margins and the “gutter” (the part of the page that makes up the binding area of the book). These measurements will be in your format information, so it’s not super hard to make allowances for this required space. However, it is important to make sure you allow for the “flow” of the art to not be unduly interrupted by this dead space. Obviously you should not put important imagery too close to this gutter. I have done double-spreads in two ways. The first is to create two single pages meant to join together. You must be careful that all of the lines that flow from page to page line up correctly. I’ve also done double spreads on one large sheet, again allowing space for margins and the gutter. Both methods work very well, so it’s really up to you. I think I prefer the two adjoining pages, just because the paper isn’t too large and, therefore, scanning the art isn’t complicated by large-format paper.

A double spread from A Playmate for Amani

Two individual pages used as a double spread from Simon’s Skin

Do you have questions regarding illustrating children’s books? Let me know in the comments – if one of my upcoming posts does not answer your question(s), I’ll put together a Q and A post at the end of this series.