#book making process

Would you consider talking about the whole process of becoming a book illustrator /children's book author?

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!! And I'd be happy to share the process!

It all started for me with my 3dTotal artbook. 3dTotal is a small publisher in the UK, and they mainly focus on collections of artists' work. They use Kickstarter to fund each book, and my agent (the amazing Seth Fishman at Gernert) discovered me through the Kickstarter for my artbook Windows to Worlds!

He asked if I had any interest in working on graphic novels or picture books, and I had already been thinking about picture books! He found me my first picture book project with Penguin Workshop, Mother of Sharks, written by the awesome Melissa Cristina Márquez, which came out last year!

While I was working on Mother of Sharks, I was also talking with him about developing The Bakery Dragon, based of course on this painting, which was (and is) one of my proudest artistic moments.

For a little background on the painting, I painted it right after a really challenging couple of months medically - I was dealing with medical complications from my chronic illness for about 6 months, and I wasn't able to finish a single painting the whole time, I was just too exhausted from hospital visits and being in pain. That painting was the first piece I was able to actually complete (both emotionally and literally) in about half a year. So it always held a really special place in my heart, and I really wanted to keep living in that little world. I think there's something in it that is very special to me, about being outside in the cold, seeing warmth and love through a glass barrier, and wanting desperately to reach it.

With Seth's guidance, over a couple months, I developed a pitch for it. The script developed slowly alongside the designs for characters, locations, etc.

(Early version of Ember above! He has changed a bit!)

I thought I had already read a lot of picture books, I've always loved them, but I read hundreds and hundreds during this process. There is something uniquely fun and challenging about telling a complete narrative in 48 pages (which is already a long picture book, many are 32!) My book also pulls some elements from comics, such as speech bubbles, which I found to be incredible assets for humor and character development.

My pitch included designs, some early example spreads, and a rough script with story beats and jokes! My agent took it out into the world, and the publisher we ended up going forward with was Knopf, an imprint of Penguin Random House! I absolutely love the Knopf team and the beautiful books they put out! My editor, Katherine Harrison, really understood what I wanted to accomplish and has been so incredibly helpful in her guidance!

And from there... through rewrites, dialog adjustments, and lots and lots of drawings, it became a book! I'm happy to answer questions about the process! I'll leave you guys with a little preview from the interior of the book! (And of course you can pre-order it here, gotta learn the author skill of always including that link haha!)

With just a few days left until the publication of my 4th author/illustrator picture book ‘Lights On Cotton Rock’ I thought I would share some early sketches, character drawings and super rough thumbnails.  

It’s good to see some of these again and compare them to how how the final book has turned out. I think I had the first spark of this idea 4 years (or so) ago so some of these are pretty old. The book has definitely been one of the most fun to see develop.

Th first stages of an idea are always so exciting and full of potential. I draw really roughly at this stage, with the assumption being that i’m the only person who will see them (yet here I am showing them to you all on the internets) These early visualisations are just a way of getting the idea out of my brain and onto paper. 

Anyway, heres a few of some of those very early sketches...

After a while of mulling and sketching the idea started taking shape and the characters started forming. Albeit, in a still pretty rough and ready fashion. 

 And then I start thinking more about story structure and how the narrative will flow within 38 pages. I tend to still plan this all out in a visual way. 

Once the story structure is in place, I can start experimenting with colour and texture. I basically cover pages in watercolour or acrylic paint, scan them  and overlay them all in Photoshop trying out different blend modes until I’m happy with the result. Again this is a really fun and exciting part of the process (and a bit messy sometimes).

Exploring other textures and lighting and shapes over these textures is when the overall look of the book begins to come through. I try and make new textures for each book I do so that they each have a different feel to one and other. This all comes into the project pretty early in the process.

And then, the final stage of the prep stage is to take my original thumbnail sketches and work them up to slightly better-but still very sketchy- ‘First Draft Rough’ which is basically a sketched out version of the entire book. 

Once myself and my editors are happy with the rough I bring all the sketches, textures and other elements together and start creating the final artwork for the book.

Phew....there we go. 

I’m really looking forward to what you think to the finished book. It’s released in the U.K. this coming Tuesday, 3rd September.

Dx