I Illustrated A Children's Book!

Hello people of the internet! I am happy to say that my first published illustration work is now available for purchase! You can order The Adventures of Santa Claus and the Trickster Claus here: https://bookstore.dorrancepublishing.com/products/the-adventures-of-santa-claus-and-the-trickster-claus?_pos=1&_sid=924a39794&_ss=r

The Adventures of Santa Claus and the Trickster Claus follows Santa delivering toys on a stormy Christmas night, but everything might not be the same when Trickster Claus ends up in town! This fun Christmas themed children's book is written by Nicholas Battista, and I was kindly asked to illustrate.

This was my first time illustrating a children's book and I learned a lot in the process!

Original sketches to give an idea for character design & style.

I do all my digital artwork through Procreate on my iPad currently and started out by doing a few sketches to see if he'd like my style first before committing to choosing me and my art. Once that decision was final, I was provided the full text of the story and some direction for what things should look like and got to work! I tried to stick to a set color pallet that felt like it matched the whimsical, Christmas-y nature of this story.

I was actually illustrating this book during the month of October a few years ago, and it felt really weird to be working on something Christmas related while being surrounded by Fall and Halloween decor (Halloween is my favorite holiday after all). So it was a little difficult to try to embrace the Christmas spirit during that time. However, if you work in any sort of sales type setting, you know that you have to start thinking about the next holiday super far in advance. People developing for bigger brands usually months or more out looking at trends multiple seasons ahead of time. This is something I know I need to work on in my own shop, but it's just difficult to bring myself to work on say Valentine's items when all I was to do is curl up on the couch and watch a spooky movie with my black cat while drinking apple cider. All that to say, I think I did a decent job of working with colors that complimented the whimsical Christmas nature of this story well even though the time of year did not line up with what I was working on.

I worked page by page, giving updates as I went along so I could make adjustments on things like character design, backgrounds, etc... to make sure it was what he was looking for. For example, my original design for the Trickster Character was much more like Santa but with a green outfit. I was given some reference photos to go off of that were more like what Nick had in his head for the character and was able to get the final Trickster you see in the published book. I often start with sketches much like what you see in the photo above, then I add the line work, color, shading, and textures. It was similar to the process of making my stickers, but on a much larger scale with full backgrounds. It was fun coming up with my own take on what Santa, his reindeer, and Mrs. Claus would look like. I tried to keep my design classic and recognizable while also making sure the style looked like mine.

So this did take longer to work on than I anticipated. Although, I always tend to think things will be quicker for me to do than they actually are. But I did still finish all the pages within a month's time frame. Balancing my usual Inktober drawings with this much larger project was something I also wasn't originally anticipating! But I managed to do both and this was one of the few times I didn't fall behind with Inktober. Go me! I felt very on top of all my art projects and found a way to balance my time between projects, life, and my full time job. This was all before the chaos of wedding planning took over my life, so I'm hoping to get back to this point with my art soon.

Luckily, I wasn't the one who had to deal directly with any publishers, I just had to make sure my files were saved in a way that kept the quality of the images and would make it easy for them to print everything. I also didn't have to add the text on, I simply provided the artwork. And it looks like everything printed beautifully! I really wasn't sure how it would look printed. Sometimes you just can't tell how the colors on your screen will translate to a printed final version. I do often test print my work as well, just so I can make sure shading and colors are actually looking like what I'm expecting them too. But obviously every printer is different.

So would I illustrate more books in the future? Absolutely! It is a really cool experience seeing your artwork come to life whether that be as a sticker, print, or in this case a whole physical book! For now I'll stick to letting others tell their stories while I bring them to life, but maybe someday in the future I'll be able to make a story of my own creation. I have a lot of little ones in my life now, so it will be so fun to see their reactions!

In the meantime, I hope you all are having a wonderful Holiday season, and consider purchasing the book if it's something you'd like to see more of in the future! Happy Holidays!