Boo! Are you afraid of the dark?
I received an order for illustrations for Daryl's book via email. I got a letter from the author who was looking for an illustrator for a new project. At that time, he had already written and published 17 children's books in America and was looking for a new artist.
The author asked me to draw the characters for the book. He was particularly interested in whether I could convey emotions because the book is about a boy who was afraid of the dark.
I worked as an animator at an animation studio in Ukraine for 10 years, and I often drew emotional maps for characters. Moreover, my experience as an animator taught me to convey emotions not only through facial expressions but also through movement and gestures. This experience was very useful when working on Daryl's book.
We signed a contract, and I started working. According to the contract, I had to complete all the work in two months. I draw quite quickly. I have high productivity. However, I should have taken a little more time for the work. First, I developed the characters and created the storyboard. Daryl asked for some corrections. But overall, he really liked it.
At first, I sketched with a pencil on paper. I like to work on large A3 sheets of paper with a double-sided red-blue pencil. Then I photograph the sketches and work on the iPad in Procreate.
I proposed a color palette for the work, which Daryl approved.
Working on the colored illustrations took a lot of time. It was challenging to draw illustrations set in a dimly lit room. Daryl did test prints at the printing house, and I adjusted the colors after his prints.
We corresponded a lot and discussed each spread. Daryl often praised me.
In two months, I completed most of the work. It took an additional two weeks to fully finish the book illustrations. At the end of the work, I made a small animation clip in Procreate. It was a very interesting project, and I got a lot of pleasure from working on the book. We will continue to collaborate with Daryl in the fall.
