A book is a LOT of work.
How much work? Well…
Let’s start with the Dummy.
A Dummy is a mockup of what a book will look like, without finished illustrations. It’s in black and white, and is very important for figuring out where the words will be and which drawings go where.
I decided I wanted one of our first pages to have Tessa yelling off into the sky, and then flying off into the town. My original sketch looked like this.
This drawing is obviously really rough, but with some cleaning, I get it put together and then add it into a layout software called InDesign. This way I can figure out where to put the words and basically figure out what the values (light and dark parts) will be.
Once I’ve decided on the layout, I print out the dummy so I can see it in the proper size.
Once I get the dummy out I put transparent tracing paper over the picture and begin to trace out the lines.
Now that we have the tracing paper, we go over all the major lines to make outlines. Once it is done, we need to do it all over again. Why? Because we need graphite on the back of the paper, so when we go over it a third time (yes, this happens three times) the graphite will transfer into your paper.
Now that we have done this twice, we put the tracing paper over our nice Bristol Board and tape it down so it doesn’t move. Then you go over all the lines a third time!
Once that is all done, make sure you wash your hands so you don’t get pencil all over your clean white board. Then carefully remove the tape and tracing paper, and see what transferred over!
Now this gives us a basis for our final artwork.
Now that we have our final outlines, we can put in the flat colors and the effects, just like we did in the last post.
Now we can just stick that back into the original dummy, which already has the words, and we have a whole page!
That’s how I make these illustrations! They’re a lot of work! For more videos of the process, go to my instagram at Rebekah Hair (@rebekah_storycraftstudios) • Instagram photos and videos. There’s a lot of fun stuff on there, and regular updates!
Are you inspired to make your own book now? Let me know!
