10 Tips for illustrating children's books
One doesn’t need to train to be a book illustrator to create and publish one’s own children’s storybooks. Almost anyone can do it - with a bit of practice and commitment. I’m an entirely self-taught artist who decided to write and illustrate my own children’s books, the first of which “The Scariest Dinosaur” has done really well on Amazon. Here are my top ten tips for illustrating your own storybook.
1. Practice. Practice. Practice.
It’s stating the obvious but if you want to become successful or proficient at anything you need to practice and practice a lot. When I decided that I wanted to create a storybook for my grandchildren I found that, despite being a successful artist, I was pretty much hopeless at illustrating. My first attempts were not great. But, I persevered and did a lot of research, and kept at it. It didn’t take long before I began to understand how illustrations were put together.
I highly recommend reading and reviewing as many children’s books as you can. There are so many out there and they are all of varying quality but you will soon see that there are relatively few styles that they can be categorised into. Once I found this I was able to decide which style I wanted to develop for myself.
Of course, you might think your illustrations are great so it is also a good idea to get some outside reviews and this is where my 2nd tip comes in.
2. Seek Advice and Opinions
This might sound scary but I found that setting up an Instagram account and dedicated Facebook page for my artwork was invaluable in terms of getting feedback. As I was developing my style I would post my works in progress and ask people to let me know what they thought. You have to be a little thick-skinned for this as some people can be rather brutal. However, most people do offer constructive criticism and suggestions - people know what they like and dislike.
I also sought the opinion of primary school teachers and children. This makes perfect sense - I will eventually want to sell this book to this audience so understanding what they want and like is essential.
3. Develop your own style and stick to it.
Many children’s authors do not create their own illustrations and if you look at some of the top illustrators you will see that there is consistency in their work, regardless of who they are illustrating for. A great example of this Axel Scheffler whose work can be seen in many of Julia Donaldson’s storybooks.
Once you find a style you look keep practicing with your sketches until you see your own style come through - and it will. The aim here is not to simply copy another artist’s work but to use them to help you learn how to illustrate and find what you are most comfortable with.
4. Understand what an illustration is.
This is important! When I started out I really didn’t understand what defined an illustration and made it different from a simple picture. Put simply, and rather obviously, an illustration illustrates! It is intended to add to the story and convey more information to help the reader and add more information and context.
Many illustrated children’s books follow a simple 32-page format with around 500 words. This really is not a lot and so one has to be economical with word use and this is where illustrations become invaluable. For example, if a scene in your story is set in a farmer’s field on a sunny day with a scarecrow nearby and lots of crows swirling overhead then there is no need to say this in words - it can all be shown in the illustration. Similarly, if a character has departed and left behind a scene of chaos and mess there is no need to say it because the reader will be able to see it.
Another aspect of illustrating for children is that I found they love to find things that are not mentioned in the story. I began placing random creatures such as mice and rabbits in my illustrations and found that children loved them. They get great delight from spotting something partially hidden or seeing other characters playfully interacting in the scene.
5. Decide on a colour palette.
When I first started to illustrate I didn’t realise that there needs to be a consistency in colour as well as style and later found out that I had used far too many colours throughout a single book. Furthermore, some scenes were related but the colours were slightly different across different pages. This doesn’t sound like a big deal but it is this kind of subtle difference that can make own’s book look cheap and unprofessional.
Again, I went back and researched a large number of books and found that there really is quite a limited colour palette in each book - well the good ones anyway! There are some good articles on how to choose a colour palette and it is also worth looking at a colour wheel to help you choose complimentary colours as this will help bring your artwork together.
6. Create a Storyboard
I am going to assume that you already have a story written and ready to illustrate but this next step also serves to help you write the story if you haven’t already. My approach is to create a grid of squares on A3 paper and assign each square as a page in the book, starting with the first page inside the cover. On each square I note what needs to go on which page. For example, the first 4 to 6 pages are usually the dedication, title, copyright etc so for a 32 page book there isn’t really 32 pages of illustration to be done. The remaining pages are used for the story and the grid allows you to work out which pages face each other so you can decide whether to have a double-page image or have two images that run together.
The storyboard is also an opportunity to see the bigger picture. By this I mean that you should be able to see, at a glance, how the story will work and whether it will flow. Corrections to the layout can be made now before you have even considered creating an illustration so this will save you a lot of wasted time.
7. Create a rough sketch then refine it before inking.
I always start off simply roughing out the concept of the illustration. What do I want to convey? What characters need to be seen? What are they doing? What else needs to go in that I don’t want to say in words?
Once I have the rough sketch I then move on to drawing the sketch on good quality watercolor paper using a light pencil - this makes it much easier to erase mistakes and start again. At this stage I try to be careful about expressions on the character’s faces.
I will keep adding the details, refining, erasing and refining until I am happy with the final sketch.
The final stage is to ink the sketch. I use a range of waterproof markers such as Uni Pin Fine Liners to carefully go over the pencil sketch. It is important to go over all of the lines with a good eraser once the inking is complete, otherwise you risk having unsightly grey marks showing through in your final illustrations.
8. Paint it!
Now you have your refined and inked sketch and your chosen colour palette it is time to paint. I only use watercolours for my illustrations because I like the softer look this provides but also because mistakes are easy to rectify. I also find it easier to paint illustrations in watercolour because acrylic, for example, takes longer to dry and seems to be less forgiving if colour mixes don’t quite match - it is much less obvious in watercolour and also seems, to me anyway, to add to the charm of the illustration.
9. Scan the image
Once the painting is dry I then scan the image so that I can tidy up any imperfections in my image editing software. I use GIMP because it is just as good as Paint Shop Pro but it is free!
Once the image is scanned and cleaned up, if necessary, I resize the image in accordance with the sizing required for the specific book I am creating. If you publish using Amazon KDP then they rather helpfully tell you what sizes you need. I will explain more about KDP and self-publishing in a later blog post.
10. Don’t be afraid to throw out and start again.
This is probably the hardest tip of all. As I started to put my books together I often find that the story does not quite work how I intended or an illustration is lacking something or needs another image to follow it to help the flow of the story. In these instances it is all too easy to just leave things as they are. This is a mistake. If you know that something is not perfect then your future readers will too. Therefore, always be willing to go back and redo something to get the book to the best state if can possibly be. It will be worth every extra minute spent!
If you enjoyed reading this or have any comments I would love to hear from you - simply message me using the form below. Many thanks,
