More Research, More Pages

This past week, I have spent more time researching how to illustrate children's books, develop characters, how big to draw your final illustrations, etc. I have found some interesting articles at this website: https://www.wordsandpics.org/ 

Following some advice I read from somewhere, I chose a page from near the middle of the book and started drawing to scale. This is how it turned out:

Drawing with some notes at the sides

I re-drew the facial expressions so many times. I was attempting to capture a fake-mad expression, but so far can only get it to look genuinely angry or creepy. If I pair the angled eyebrows with a smiling growl, it looks creepy. However, if I omit the angry eyebrows, it doesn't appear to be growling. Angry mouth with open eyebrows just doesn't fit well. So, for now, I am stuck with her looking angry. 

Added teeth and shading in the mouth, also tiger stripes for the background

First try, but the top words felt static/boring

I have several pages in the book where there are only one or a small handful of words on them. I have been debating whether I should just enlarge the font, or I draw the words. After experimenting with this page, I have decided I want to illustrate them.

And how cute is that Tiger?

Second try, with more lively/dramatic lettering

It also helped me to decide that I want to add some "real" tigers in the illustrations. I thought about putting a Tiger or Tiger element on every page/spread of pages. I've always enjoyed books that have a little lizard or mouse or such hidden on every page, but I'm not sure if I could seamlessly incorporate that in this story without it taking away from it. 


My next step, I think, will be to put together a to-scale rough of the whole book. I think I will cut the pages and illustrate them, then bind them together somehow and paste in the text where I think it might go. 

This will force me to make concrete the fuzzy details of the pages that I keep dismissing. Part of the reason I keep dismissing them is because I get overwhelmed with the infinite possible number of ways to draw it. 

As I've said before, I don't quite trust my ability to make stuff up, as I do to recreate things. This makes drawing the people and the scenes in the house easier than doing the lettering and vignettes. 

I am nervous for when it comes to putting the final illustrations with the final text into the final book. I don't think that I can get around using some sort of computer program to put them together nicely. Annnnd that is the area where I really have no idea what I am doing. I've never liked to do digital art, and it is expensive to get the programs I'll need to make it look professional. 

We'll see in the coming weeks whether or not I break down and buy something, or if I try to do it all with things I can find for free. For now, however, I'll stick with pencil and paper. And lets be real, that step may take me several weeks to complete anyway.