The Hot Air Balloon Ride - Step by Step

I thought it would be fun to show you a little step-by-step of the process that we do to make a fully Illustrated page. Here is a sample from the book "The Hot Air Balloon Ride" written by Emily Hurst.

STEP 1: Once we receive the complete typed version of a manuscript along with the authors notes we have the artist do a concept sketch of what the characters should look like. We then send them to the client for approval before continuing. As you can see we did changed them a little, we made the shorter and took off the material on the top of the curtians.

STEP 2: The first thing we do is to have everyone involved sit and do a reading of the manuscript and figure out how to block it into the number of pages we need to get it into. We then talk about each and every page and what it should look like. We will then do some thumbnails of the page until we agree on the basic concept.

STEP 3: If the client chooses we would then send a refined sketch. Then the sketch is inked by hand and scanned into the computer for coloring.

STEP 4: Our illustrations are digitally colored usually using Adobe Photoshop. This gives us a lot of control on the final image, we not only can make color adjustments to the page but can completely change the color of each piece. When we first started this book we made the curtains blue and quickly realized that they needed to stand out in contrast against the sky and with the raccoon so we changed them to red.

STEP 5: Typically each piece is painted on it's own layer so we can reuse part of the illustration if necessary, for example if we wanted to isolate the owl and use it somewhere else in the book we can and that gives us a lot of options, saves us time and saves our clients money!

STEP 6: Once we finish the illustration we send a proof to the client and make any minor changes requested. It is then sent to the layout artist where the page layout, color and font choices are made and then put together. Another proof is sent to the client to approve before being sent to the printer.

I hope this gives you some insight into our illustration process...let us know how we can bring your story to life!

Click on any of these pictures for a close up!

Illustrations by Autumn, Layout by Sally.