First and foremost, What I learned about making and publishing a children's book is that I wish someone would have put out instructions, because I felt blind going through all of this! Therefore, I am sharing my personal experience--- trials and errors, and tips to help anyone who needs words of encouragement.I'll be writing in segments. And tonight I will start with the beginning (oh how fitting, you say!). I will, in fact, talk about the beginning stages--- storyboards, sketches, meetings, and how to avoid doing things over and over till you start to cry.
It all starts with words.
I do believe a book will actually start developing very well as long as it has an edited manuscript with the kinks already worked out, and as much accuracy as possible to its final counterpart.
Next, Story board!
It wasn't complicated and it shouldn't be for you. The storyboard is the easiest, most enjoyable part of the process! Just be free and loose, don't impress anybody with your drawings--- especially yourself--- and be ready to do a couple different boards. Revise and talk about your storyboard with someone to make sure your ideas are showing up on paper clearly.
Yada Yada Yada, right? Right. I'm guessing this is all pretty simple. So I'll just give a few tips to illustrators that I ran into. These issues made my life difficult toward the end of the project, so it's best to avoid them in the first place.
- Decide what your medium is and make sure you can paint, draw, whatever, on the flattest surface possible! I used watercolor, and forgot that paper warps. Tape your water color to a board, and keep the originals flat for photographing.
- Decide on the dimensions of artwork that you will need to abide by. If you are illustrating a 9 x 7 book, you do NOT want to paint your illustrations on 30 x 32. Make sure you either know you'll be cropping your image, or make the proportions similar.
- number your originals on the back with what page number or text each goes with. This will rid you of some confusion in the future.
That is all for now. I will be back for the next installment. Happy book making!
---Annie
