How to Choose a Children Book Illustrator

Understand the need of the story:-

It is important to understand what will suit your story in terms of illustrations and what is the age group which you are targeting. Not all illustrations styles will suit every story. You must see which other books of your category (Genre) has done well in the market and what were the kind of illustrations. Will realistic characters suit your story or a cartoonist characters will help your story better. Should you get a water color style or should you consider a digital illustration. These are various issues which you will need to work upon.

Search various illustrators: –

You can look at the portfolio of various children book illustrators available online and you can filter a few of them whose style closely matches your requirements. Once you hear back from the illustrators, you can ask him/her to create a sample so that you can see if the illustrator is really a good match or not. If the illustrator is not able to make the sample of your liking in the first attempt, then give one more chance and also share your expectations once more. It happens that illustrator is not in sync with your expectations during the first attempt but during revisions the illustrator is able to read your mind better.

Select the illustrator: –

After your research when you are confident about the children book illustration capability of the illustrator, ask if he/she would like to work on your project and get a contract signed which must include all the necessary details like the number of illustrations,. Payment terms, illustration process, ownership of copyrights etc. You must also include the approximate deadline in the contract so that the project remains on track. Once the contract is signed, you may pay an advance if it forms a part of the contract. After this, the illustrator can start working on the illustrations and as an Author you must be quick in giving the feedback to the illustrator so that the project keeps moving.

Start working on next steps:-

Once you have selected the right illustrator, your planning for next steps like publishing/self publishing must start and you should start your research about what route you will be following. Also, you must work out on your budget, if you plan to self publish and you must start speaking with the self publishers in order to get the right set of services from them to make your book available for selling.

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Children Book Illustration Styles

This scene has been made in digital illustration and the requirement of the scene was to capture the frank behavior of the man which is making the counselor a little embarrassed. I have used colors which go with the theme and here I needed to show that the man is frankly sharing his concerns with the marriage counselor where as the woman is really not comfortable with the way the man is telling everything. The man seems to have a lot to tell and he wants to continue where as the counselor wants the man to finish his conversation as soon as possible.

 

I have made semi realistic characters and also wanted to give the look of the man as a non-caring, slightly selfish urban man and I tried to make the counselor look sincere and mature and someone who takes her job seriously.

 

The scope of this illustration is limited to a small counseling room where the visitor is in a comfortable position to speak up and that is the reason, a couch has been placed and the counselor is sitting on a chair so that she remains attentive and active. There are very few objects and the main attention remains on the expressions of the two persons in this illustration. Another reason to make the characters in semi realistic style was that the humor would have been lost if I had attempted to make the characters look real. Semi realistic illustration styles are better in case there is a fun element involved in the story line or the scene.

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Children Book Illustration

This children book illustration has been created in Manual coloring and water color has been used with pencil color. It was supposed to be an inside room illustration and I tried to limit the attention of the viewer in a closed and limited frame. A girl is reading a book as the teacher is listening to her, the colors used are very sober and simple and I tried to make this illustration soothing to the eyes. As a children’s book illustrator it’s very important to understand the scene requirement and this scene demanded an active set of people with a very realistic feeling and that is the reason, I made very realistic faces. There is a window in the background along with a notice board and a small cupboard next to the window. The teacher is dressed up in simple sky blue shirt and kids are wearing clothes of various colors.

 

Everyone is actively participating in the discussion which is taking place in the classroom and while on girl is reading it out, the others are also very eager to get a chance to participate in the reading activity. The kids are in the age bracket of 6-9 years and the teacher is a middle aged woman and accordingly everyone’s body language has been illustrated. This illustration was really loved by everyone who saw it and it was very satisfying for me.

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