New Designs

As promised, here is a photo of my first storyboard:

As you can see it is very sloppy and has some notes in the corner about page numbers.

Friday, I made a bigger, more detailed version. On this one I have all the words to the story written out in approximately all the right places. While drawing it, I noticed a few places I could cut down on pages, but still not enough to make it 32 pages, so I've decided to leave it. I did change a few of the layouts, however. There are still pages that I'm not 100% sure how I want them to look, but that's ok for now. 

I decided to make The Little Tiger of India an 8"x 8" book, for no better reason than I thought a square book would be cool. For the storyboard I did 2" x 2" squares. 

On Saturday, I cut out a few 8" x 8" squares of drawing paper as well as a 8" x 16" two-page spread. My intention was to draw several pages of my book in the actual book size, however, when I attempted to draw one of the poses, I just was not liking the illustration style I had chosen. It was very two-dimensional, and I was having a hard time figuring out how to position the head at different angles and still have it look the same. I also could not figure out how to make the Little Tiger crawl with such a big head. Because of these dilemmas, I decided to once more change the style. 

The new style

The the heads in the middle are the first ones I drew, trying mostly to stick to my original style. When that wasn't working, I tried something else and came up with the little guy on the bottom left. I tried him out in different poses, using photos as reference. I found he's actually tricky to draw from the front, but I think I figured it out. I was surprised at how easy it was to keep him looking like the same character. 

Next step was to see if I could draw other characters in the same style. I did me next. Most of my reference photos from India were of me in a hat, and as I love wearing hats, I decided it should be part of the book too. I think it will add interest and set the Stranger apart from the Little Tiger more as well. 

Me with my hair looking much nice here than it normally does. 

I'm super happy with how the sketch of me crawling looks! I have rarely drawn characters in different poses. I've stuck with portraits, and most of those smiling looking straight at the camera. I was always striving for something nice, professional looking. If I was going to spend so much time on a drawing, why would I do someone making a weird face? Or worse yet, one where you couldn't even see their face? That seems very silly to me now, but that's how I used to think. I could probably count on one hand the number of people I've drawn in action poses or even facing away from the paper. 

One other factor that went into me not drawing full persons, especially doing something other than standing still, is that I never wanted to memorize body proportions. I drew for fun, and that never seemed fun for me, so I never bothered with it. 

I'm thinking I maaaay need to look into it now. 

And a bonus picture for comparison:

Old style, I'll need to put the bow-tie on the new one

New style, but definitely not a final product

I'd ask you to vote on which one was your favorite, buuut I've already decided to do this new style. I would still be interested in your input though, what you like/don't like about this or that, and who knows? I may incorporate some of your ideas. 

I still need to work on my color scheme and painting skills, but I'm happy with the direction this project is headed. 

The Page is the Limit

In my researching, I found the standard length of a children's book is 32 pages. I looked through several children's books that we own and counted pages and found this roughly to be true. A good number had the standard 32 pages, but some did not. There were some books that went well over, into the 50s or 60s even, which made me wonder. 

Sunset in India

Is there a category of book between children's book and a Young Adult novel? I always classified the early "I can read" type books as children's books because my parents would read them to use when we were little, and they were some of my favorites. (Think Sam and the Firefly, Fish Out of Water, Billy and Blaze) Now I am curious if those would be classified under a different category. I have not tried googling it yet though. 

This brings me to another dilemma. For every book you write, you are supposed to have an intended audience in mind, and write toward that age group. The age of your main character is supposed to be the same (or roughly the same) as your intended audience. 

Now my main character is about 3-4yrs old, and my intended audience is roughly the same 3-7 or so. (Of course I hope it to appeal to adults and older children as well.) However, I think that I may have a few over the recommended word count. One article I read said no more than 50 on a page, and I am well under that. 

Well, I decided I'd better just look this up. This article has a nice concise list of both book categories and recommended number of words per category:   https://www.writing.ie/guest-blogs/childrens-books-age-categories-and-word-counts/

My word count currently stands at 261, so I think I'm in a pretty good spot in regards to this standard for children's books. 

With the page count, however, I am struggling. My original rough draft was 50 pages long. That is 18 more that the standard count, and also not in the normal multiple of 8 pages. In my second rough draft storyboard, I cut some words and some full page illustrations, and combined some pages.  (As of right now, I do not have a way to add photos of them, so I apologize.) This got me down to 40 pages.

I don't think that I can cut/combine anymore without losing some of the fun and impact of the story. 

This is a really great video that explains the layout of a children's book and how the pages are set up. It is well laid out and was very helpful when I put together my second rough draft: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6w0ZhMiXj8

Hopefully by next Sunday I will be able to upload some photos again and show you what my storyboard/rough draft looks like. 

The Characters

I do not know what the recommended number of characters is for a children's book; however, mine has five: two main ones, a minor one and two that appear once in pictures only. I had a friend who I went to India with that I would have loved to include in the story, but for simplicity's sake, I had to leave her out. This still makes me a little sad. 

As promised, I shall introduce them all to you as they currently appear. You have already met the star of our story, the Little Tiger, so I shall introduce you next to "the Stranger."

As you may have guessed, the stranger is me. Skinny, slouchy, pony-tailed, and pale, I showed up at the Little Tiger's house, and he wasn't sure what to make of me. 

With my character, I want to convey someone a little different from who the Little Tiger is used to seeing. For this purpose, I might mess with the coloring of the original painting, for instance, making my hair lighter and eyes blue. I want there to be enough contrast that it makes the friendship that forms that much more sweet. 

The Little Tiger From India is a story playing off of differences and similarities that I hope readers will pick up more subconsciously than what I will be laying out for you in these blog posts. 

Next, I have an aunt, who is in just one or two of the illustrations, and "the Mother" who comes in at the end of the story. (I apologize for the difficulty  of seeing such light pencil drawings.) 

An Aunt on the left, the Mother, on the right, and the Little Tiger at bottom left. 

A few things I want to convey with the Mother are a peaceful countenance, traditional Indian attire, and an atmosphere of safety. I remember the hospitality and love shown me by so many of the women who I met in India, and I hope to be able to capture some of that in this one character in this story. And maybe some children will read my story and see someone who is dressed a little differently from them and yet experience the same care and love they would from their own mother. 

And last, but not least, three progressions of another aunt who will be featured in the story, plus a little explanation of the thought process behind creating them. 

The paintings are listed in order of how I painted them, but honestly I like parts of each. Each time you may notice the clothing gets more detailed, and I hope to replicate the last one in my final project. At the outset, I was liking the flowing hair in the last illustration; however, I think the more tame, proper hairstyle conveys the personality of the person I'm drawing a little better. I like the highlights that I left in the last one, however. In the end, I will probably do a combination of the last two paintings.

I'm realizing a difficulty with drawing people I know and talking about the process is to word things carefully. Obviously I am going to be using creative liberty with dress, hairstyles, personality, etc., but I don't want to inadvertently cause offense by careless wording or presentation. I have only received positive feedback from everyone, and I really appreciate the support. 

In the up-coming weeks, be on the look out for story-boarding,  lists of things I hope to accomplish, and whether or not I can fit my story in the recommended 32 page limit. 

Keep It Simple Stupid

Because of my love for drawing realism, I have a hard time keeping the line work simple and translating what I see in the real world into a cartoon one. My brain is not original. I don't create much art without looking at references either from photos or real life. I've been told by many artists that you should never draw/paint from a photograph or your work will be flat, but so far photos have worked pretty well for me.

With cartoon drawings, you have to simplify things, take out some details, show movement with just a few lines. What I am realizing as I draw, however, is that the fewer lines you have, the more important they are. Just one little wiggle can send a whole new meaning to an eye, or the shape of the head. Make the eye slightly bigger than intended, and suddenly your cute little boy looks like he's just seen a monster. Obviously, these can be used to your advantage, but only if they are intentional, or at least happen at the right moment.

Trying to get head shape and body proportions.

I compensate for this by drawing very carefully trying to get the lines just right, however, this has a tenancy to make my drawings flat and lifeless. The more I think about the drawing, the less spontaneity it has. I'm working on finding the balance between a well-planned, consistent character and and one that is full of life and movement.

I should probably do some reading on how to develop a character. I actually did read one article, that said you should know what your character looks like from different angles. I attempted to do what I learned today is called a "character turn-around", but when I got home and looked at my original drawing, I saw that I had gotten my head-to-body proportion all wrong. 

The body here is too short and chubby. I think I got the head fairly accurate though.
Also, you may notice me trying out some different styles of eyes at the bottom. 

I think the next thing I am going to try, especially after watching several Youtube videos today on character design, is to make an accurate grid of facial and body proportions so that when I have free time to draw, but no access to my original or any reference photo, I can still replicate the character. 

I have also been working on developing some of the other characters in the story, so look out for concept art of them coming soon!

The Style

Most artists have a style, a way that they draw characters or things that is distinct to them. It makes them stand out, so when you look at their work you can say, "oh yeah, that's a Rembrandt, a Picasso," etc. From what I understand, beginning artists work on developing their style through exercises, copying other artists, taking what they like from here and there, and eventually creating something that is  their own. This is similar to a writer developing a "writer's voice," which is something I'm more familiar with.

If I had to categorize my art, I'd say it is mainly realism in charcoal or graphite, predominately portraits, but also a few still-lifes. This is my "good art", which I spend the most time on. Other than that I  doodle cartoons or dabble in some watercolor. Even with watercolor, I tend more toward realism than anything cartoon or abstract. 

Example of one of my charcoal portraits 

I think my tendency toward realism comes from not having much of an art background. I've only taken two real art classes, one with a home school co-op and one in college, and the rest is what I taught myself from books and the natural talent God gave me. Therefore, I didn't have standards by which to measure if I was "good" or not; however, if I could draw something that looked exactly like what I was drawing from, well then, I figured, I must be pretty good. 


When I first decided to try to illustrate this book, I started with one of my favorite photos I took of Lincoln.   

I chose watercolor as my medium because it is my current obsession, and I needed something to capture the bright colors and patterns I remember from India.  Also, it seems to be fairly forgiving, not super precise, able to cover up where my skill is lacking.  

The first illustration I did was semi-realistic and fairly detailed. I really like the painting, but it wasn't quite what I wanted for the story. 

Before outlining and more Background details

After outlining and accidentally messing up his nose

I wanted something more childish, more energetic and whimsical. And let's be honest, something easier and quicker.

I am not good at drawing hands or feet, and I know almost nothing of body proportions. Sure I've read stuff about it, but I never remember it. 

So, I told myself, cartoons don't have to be realistic. I've seen a lot of oddly proportioned characters out there. A real artist may tell you there is a lot of science, training, and skill that goes behind what looks to be a rudimentary illustrated book, and I'm sure there is, but I figured I can give it a shot without the training. 

And this is what I came up with:

Being able to replicate it is gonna be the tricky part.