My First Picture Book Dummy Part 6 - Finals

Part 1 - Concept And Inspiration
Part 2 - Writing
Part 3 - Thumbnails
Part 4 - Character Design 
Part 5 - Roughs 
Part 6 - Finals

I've lapsed in my writing of this series for a few weeks because I was on holiday and was trying to work as little as possible, but I suppose that's it's own blog post.

I mentioned in a previous post in this series that I still have a few roughs to finish before my book dummy will be complete. This hasn't stopped me from moving ahead to finish some of the final spreads. I was getting stuck on the last roughs and it was frustrating so I followed a piece of advice I got long ago that I often turn to. The advice is this, "Do what you know first, the rest will work itself out after". This is usually applied within one drawing, but can also be used in a bigger project.

In the case of my book dummy it's my hope that seeing a few finished pieces will help inspire me to push through those last problematic roughs, and help to inform them as well.

My First Picture Book Dummy, Part 2 -Writing

Part 1 - Concept And Inspiration
Part 2 - Writing
Part 3 - Thumbnails
Part 4 - Character Design 
Part 5 - Roughs 
Part 6 - Finals

Last week in part one I wrote about how and why I decided to create my first picture book dummy. So then came the toughest part, the writing.

I knew that since I'm much less confident in my writing than I am in my drawing that it would be best to err on the side of simplicity. One day I might take a shot at wonderful rhyming prose like Julia Donaldson (The Gruffalo) but it will take a lot of work before I have the chops for that. At this point though, I still only had the idea of a girl having a pet tiger. Where to go from there?

My First Picture Book Dummy, Part 1 - Concept & Inspiration

Part 1 - Concept And Inspiration
Part 2 - Writing
Part 3 - Thumbnails
Part 4 - Character Design 
Part 5 - Roughs 
Part 6 - Finals

Although it feels like I'm just getting started in my illustration career (will it ever stop feeling that way?) I've actually been doing it for quite a while now, over 7 years in fact. I've had many fun projects along the way but it has begun to feel like I was over due in focusing in on my big goal of becoming a published picture book illustrator.

Inspirations for my picture book dummy

Alas, the only offers I've received for children's book illustration have been from self publishers. While I'm quite flattered by the offers, I also want to be paid for my work since that's the professional part in professional illustrator. So I felt it was a good time to start creating my own picture book. A couple things helped me come to this conclusion.

StoryPals

I'm a big believer that the iPad can be a great tool for education. So it was my honour to work with speech-language pathologist Eric Sailers on StoryPals, an incredibly robust story comprehension app for iPad.

It's very rewarding to know that StoryPals will be put to good use by dedicated educators helping children to learn valuable skills. Please check it out and let me know what you think

Chef Able's Fables

Believing in the importance of healthy food for kids is something that Chefables and I have in common. So when they asked me to participate in their book Chef Able's Fabels I was more than happy to help out.

Below are the two spreads that I worked on for the Take Out Philosophy story, plus my concept sketches.

Elf Cam

I recently had the honour of working on this iPhone App project called Elf Cam with Wet Nose Design. It's a really fun app that lets you see Santa come down your chimney as well as a multitude of other functions. I find the Ask An Elf videos particularly enjoyable!Make sure you download yours today!

Wet Nose Design was a joy to work with on the project as they allowed me a lot of creative freedom, and had lots of good input, and a good vision of what the final product should look like. This was hopefully the first of many apps that I get to work on.

Illustrator of the Month

I'm exited to announce that childrensillustrators.com has chosen me to be their illustrator of the month! I consider it a big honour considering the the wealth of talented illustrators who are members of the site.