How to Create Book Illustrations

Illustrating books for kids is just one way book illustrators can express themselves.

Books often use illustrations. Not only children's picture books, but some works of fiction make use of illustrations, both in color or black and white. If you have a talent for drawing and enjoy reading, illustrating for books can be an enjoyable, rewarding way to earn a living. By using your talents for drawing, along with your imagination, you can create images for books that will work along with the story itself to engage readers and help them put an image to the words on paper.

Things You'll Need

• Pencil
• Eraser
• Color pencils
• Sketch pad

Instructions

1. Read the manuscript to the book you are planning to illustrate. Discuss your ideas with the author to ensure that the two of you have similar visions for the book. If you are both the author and the illustrator, this part of the process is easier. If you're only the illustrator, taking into account what the author envisions is part of the process.

2. Sketch a few ideas based on the discussions you had with the author. The idea is to get your creative ideas on paper and balance those ideas with what the author of the book wants. Sometimes an author may not have any ideas or ideas that aren't concrete. Your job is to try to capture what you believe the author was aiming for when he wrote the scenes you're going to illustrate. Unless you're doing a children's picture book, where you will typically have an illustration per page, you will have a select number of illustrations per book. Choose the scenes you want to illustrate wisely. Look for scenes that you feel might benefit from a visual in conjunction with the text.

3. Do rough sketches of the scenes you decide to illustrate. These sketches don't need all of the detail and don't need color. These are the rough sketches you will show to the author for approval. If you're the author, this rough sketch process will give you a basis to work with later on.

4. Draw finished work for all your illustrations. Add more specifics to the illustrations and color them. Color pencil is sufficient, but you can also do paintings for the finished illustrations or oil pastels. Do your finished illustrations on good quality sketch paper and scan them into the computer for digital versions the publisher will be able to work with.

References

• FullSail University: Illustrating Picture Books
• Smithsonian Institution: Picturing Words, the Power of Book Illustrations