4 Basic Steps for Developing Children’s Book Illustrations
If you are someone who is interested in drawing illustrations for a children’s book or trying to figure out the best path forward for developing them, you’ve come to the right place! Below are four foundational steps to know, based on my own mistakes when developing my first children’s book. I’ll be referring to using Procreate, a digital illustration app, on the Ipad - however, the same methods can be applied to whatever digital illustration app you are using. Let’s begin!
Step 1: Setting Up Your Digital Canvas
The first step is to know exactly what canvas dimensions, resolution, and color profile to set up your illustration spreads as. A precursor step before drawing any illustrations is to look for book manufacturers and determine their printing information:
What are the available book sizes they can print (8”x8”, 8.5” or 8.5”, etc.)?
What is the bleed dimension of the book size?
What is their expected color profile (CMYK or RGB)?
What resolution is preferred (300 dpi or 200 dpi)?
What format would they like the final print file to be (PDF, etc.)?
Book manufacturers may have slightly different printing needs, so it is best to confirm with them or research their printing criteria. The reason your canvas should be set up for printing is so that the illustrations and color will look as close to how it is when printed and they won’t come out blurry. This is the foundational step for printing any artwork from a digital illustration app!
Once you have the information ready, you can move on to setting up your digital illustration canvas. Be sure to set up the width and height on the spread that includes bleed and be sure to set the color profile and resolution correctly. For instance, the canvas information for my book was: 8.5”x8.5” with 0.25” bleed on both edges, 300 dpi resolution, and CMYK color profile.
NOTE: In Procreate, you cannot set up bleed on your canvas so you will need to do this manually. One trick is to use the Drawing Grid as a guide and set the grid to the bleed dimensions and draw from there. It won’t be perfect, but this will help you understand your limits and where your illustrations will be cut off. It is good to set up bleed because then you won’t be surprised when elements on the edges are cut off and you create illustrations knowing where the edge limits are.
Step 2: Develop a Core Color Palette
A key piece of a children’s book illustration is choosing a color that matches the storyline. If the children’s book has a generally happy theme, you can make the illustrations bright and colorful. If the storyline is more serious, there could be a core color palette used throughout all the illustration spreads. Developing a color palette is entirely up to you and feel free to play with different color schemes first before selecting the final color palette.
When you are switching to a CMYK color profile, it might take some time to understand the maximum color brightness you can achieve, let alone the different colors that go with one another. It is important to experiment with the colors first before diving straight into the illustrations. There are also tricks and effects you can use to increase the sharpness of colors so the colors can pop out more.
When you have a color palette ready, create a color palette specifically for the book illustrations. This will make your life so much easier as you are drawing your spreads! One additional tip is to draw the main characters first and develop the colors for them. This is a good start to setting the foundation for color and the colors that will complement them later, including background, scene elements, and other characters.
Step 3: Choose Main Brushes
When you start developing your illustrations, have a handful of brushes to use that includes texture and effects. The quantity of brushes used depends on the complexity of the art. It is up to you whether you want to add a unique look to your drawings, but keep in mind that your illustrations should appeal and engage with the audience. Sometimes, this can be done with artistic simplicity, if done well.
For my first children’s book, I used five main brushes and added some effects after. Also, keep in mind that the more brushes you use, the more brushes and effects that you will need to apply for each illustration. This means that the more time you will need to spend on each spread to maintain consistency.
Step 4: Brainstorm Layout and Text
One huge step as you develop your children’s illustrations is to have schematic illustrations and storyline first before drawing the final spreads. This can initially begin with a simple powerpoint of the number of pages you want, including filler, back cover, and front cover, and images from Google to show how each page will look. This process doesn’t involve sketching the illustrations yet - it is more about fine tuning both the illustrations and text, as well as locate where the text will be as part of the illustrations.
My philosophy regarding children’s book illustrations is to make every spread dynamic and unique. This means to mix and match spreads as listed below:
Full illustration spread on both pages
Full illustration spread with bubble for text
Full illustration with enlargement of character
A full illustration on half of each page
One full illustration on one side, and the other with text and some added elements
Two different spreads but bleeding together
The ideas are endless, so I encourage you to brainstorm and figure out ways to make each illustration interesting and engaging. Inherently, make sure the illustrations go with the storyline and do their best to convey the scene and emotions.
Embrace Your Shape book will launch on August 29, 2023!
We are 10 days away from launching the Embrace Your Shape book on Kickstarter! Our goal is to help new moms transition into motherhood with a focus on mental health, so we created a book that adds a twist to the usual narrative: the underlying theme is something that new moms go through as a new parents.
A recurring concern that resonated among moms from our survey in February 2022 was body transformation. We wanted to introduce a unique idea where a children’s book can be relatable to both new moms and their child: one who is transitioning into a role as a new parent and one who is developing into a curious human being.
The book is meant to reinforce body positivity, self-acceptance, and navigating new circumstances. After a year and half of the storyline and illustrations development, we are SO close to releasing this out into the world. We do need help in manufacturing costs and we hope that this Kickstarter will be the start of a unique venture for all of us (and maybe not the last)!
Those who support the campaign in the first 3 days will get a discount too! We also have interesting Kickstarter rewards lined up, so be sure to check all tiers and add-ons to see what fits you best. Check out our story to learn more. Thank you in advance for your support!
Let me know what you children’s book you are developing in the Comments section, I would love to know!
Happy creating,
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