Learning to Draw Books

Video Transcript

"Joel Hickerson, grindog.com and the topic today is how to draw a book or how to illustrate a book. I've illustrated I guess now probably over 50 different books and each project seems to take on its own personality and requires a different approach. Some of them have been for instance picture books and picture books take an entirely different approach than say a chapter book. On a picture book for instance the pictures are what is selling that book. The story line is what is going to be kind of neat and nifty but if you don't illustrate that book to where it really emphasizes the text and even the words you illustrate the letters sometimes and the words so you really need to have a solid impact as you go through this book with your illustrations. Now the other type book that you might or another type book that you might illustrate is a chapter book and a chapter book needs to be a little more subtle, the text is what is taking this one, taking the reader through the book so the reader may come upon pages and pages of text and then all of a sudden get surprised with an illustration. Well that illustration, the author may leave up to you to pick which part of that text to illustrate and when that happens you better get something with a lot of impact and a little bit of action and dynamism so that the reader is drawn that much more in the book and then also here again the artist is very important and is probably just as important as the author because the artist has to come up with this character that matches this author's view and vision. If you pick a brunette kid when you are writing about a blond then you've missed the point. You haven't read the book and you are not doing the author or the book any justice and then there are other types of books and you'll come upon manuals maybe even rules books. I illustrated this one book for a rugby referee that created a referee rules book. Well we took a humorous spin to it and we actually picked people that we knew and we threw them into the book and it created a little more personalization plus you already knew these guys' personalities so you didn't have to create the personality or you might get a how to draw book which usually if it is a younger audience it is even bigger and man these are the greatest projects in the world and you can draw big and you actually get to share your craft. The main thing that you need to look at when you take on a project, an illustration of a book is 1) what project, is it a manual, is it a chapter, is it a picture book? Your approach is it going to be humorous, is it going to be serious, it is going to be retro, take all this into consideration but the main thing is to express yourself, express who you are because as an artist you are just as important as the author so keep that in mind and have fun."