If you’re looking for a character to help sell your business to the masses, look no further than RobTheDesigner.com – I can do that for you!

Just a sneak peek at my leading lady…

Illustration #4 of Penelope Pilot:

“Her head’s too big. It looks like a pumpkin on a stick!”  ;)  Never let it be said that I cannot handle a little criticism, even if it isn’t “seasoned with salt” to quote the Bible…  Plus, I heard her overcoat looks like a bathrobe.  Now I’ve drawn Penelope over 25 times now, and still I’m having the hardest time keeping her looking like this (color) each time…

Here’s the revised sketch, with an entirely new background. Notice how her head is now smaller. I was joking with my client, that now she looks more like a “rutebega on a stick”, rather than a pumpkin. ;)  See, still after 25 times, her head keeps changing size. Like my friend Jeffrey said, “Consistency is an art all in itself.” Amen to that.

Do any illustrators out there who have done children’s books have any advice on how I could keep this from happening? I’m open to any feedback out there.

First, I start out with really rough sketches. Once I get the scene composed how I like it, I’ll do a second, more refined sketch (HB pencil on tracing paper) which I then scan and present to the client. Here’s the first rough drawing:

Next, I do the linework in photoshop on a layer above the sketch layer, so I get really clean lines which I can move around in my scene to refine the composition. Here’s the main character, Penelope:

After the scene is composed, it looks like this in Photoshop:

Next, adding color. This is a process in and of itself, but in the end, after everything is filled in, shaded, lighting effects applied, and other top secret magic tricks, we end up with a beautiful image like this one, the first illustration of the story:

Project update: I’ve created sketched illustrations for each page of the book now. They’re in the review and revision stage. Here’s a sneak peek at the 2nd page so far:

Draw a skateboarding penguin. With kneepads. ;)  Here’s mine:

here are some other critters too.. polar bears, beavers, fish, turkeys…  and yes, penguins. Or as my daughter used to say when she was about 4, “pwengins!”

Original drawing in my sketchbook...

The next step is really refining and darkening my line work, in preparation for scanning into the computer. I lay a sheet of tracing paper over my sketch, and using a Staples OptiFlow pen (or other nice and smooth ink pen) I redraw the sketch with dark lines and any relevant shading I want to show in my linework after its colored.

Scanned sheet of tracing paper

My next step is scanning the tracing paper into the computer. I usually scan in grayscale to get the subtleties of the scan to show, rather than scanning as 1-bit line art. Also, I try to always scan 300 dpi, because you never know when you’ll need a hi-res version of your illustration.

Working off my scanned image, I’ll adjust the brightness, contrast and levels of the scan in Photoshop, and erase any smudges that might have gotten on the original drawing. I’ll select the layer once I’m happy with the cleanliness of the image, and float it to a new layer and then changing the blending mode to Multiply (after selecting the white with the Magic Wand tool then deleting it). This allows my coloring layers beneath the lineart to show through, but it doesn’t mess up the top line layer.

I’ll start by creating a few layers for color, laying down the background color as well as a few swatches to use as a painter’s palette (for the eyedropper tool):

Coloring the drawing with a handy pallete layer in Photoshop

Once all the coloring is finished (the longest step), I’ll create a new layer for shadows. Using my marquee tool is the quickest and easiest for me, as I block in large areas of shadow, referring to my original sketch in my sketchbook. Once all the shadows are filled with black in the shadow layer, I’ll apply a Gaussian Blur to give a soft effect, if necessary.  It looks a bit dark, but this is what I’m seeing a this point:

Shadow layer painted on and Gaussian blur applied

Having the shadows on a separate layer helps a great deal, because I can adjust the intensity easily with that layer’s opacity slider. I decided on 15% opacity for these shadows:

Shadow layer complete with opacity turned to 15%

The next step in this illustration was the lighting effect. This was different from the shadows, because I have a TV casting a cool glow across the subject. I create this effect by blocking in the area that will be OUTSIDE of the lit-up area using the marquee tool, and filling it with a dark blue color to add intensity. Once that layer is filled, I’m going to apply a gaussian blur to this effect as well for a more subtle dramatic effect. Take a look at the layer in the layer palette:

Creating the shadows from the TV

Note I’ve turned the opacity down a bit. Again, it always helps to have it on a separate layer…

Shadow layer (from TV)

Once those final touches are done, the illustration is ready! Here’s a smaller, web-friendly version (the original is 300 dpi)… Voila!!

Final illustration!