Mike Motz - Children's Book Illustration - How To Easily Publish Your Children's Book

Now comes the fun part. You've breathed life into your characters and given them personalities with your descriptive and entertaining text, and now it's the illustrators turn to impress you and "put a face to a name". Enjoy this time, because to me - outside of becoming parents - it is one of the most exciting, creative collaborations that two people can share.

Now, to this point you've most likely given a basic description to your illustrator as to what you think your book's characters should look like. After all, you've been visualizing what they look like in your mind for quite some time, and it's very reasonable to think that the characters should look like what you've imagined.

A reasonable illustrator will accept this, and in fact appreciate it, because it not only gives them some kind of direction as to how to design the characters, but also helps them more quickly create illustrations that will please you, the client. Hopefully, your illustrator has had experience in creating memorable children's book characters and they may suggest alterations or improvements to the look of the characters if they can think of any, and show you pencil sketches to support their opinions. Consider their ideas, and should you require it, pass around the sketches to others and solicit their opinions.

You have to remember that even though children's book illustration is a business to your illustrator, they are professionals and it is in their best interest to do the best possible job for you and your book. Your referral or recommedation is invaluable to them in obtaining new business, and the artwork created for your book will help sell their services to other authors.

After reading to this point, you're probably now wondering what you should expect to see happening during this creative collaboration that I've been speaking so highly of. Since I can't possibly speak for all illustrators, I'll use my own illustration creation process as an example and would expect the majority of illustrators to work somewhat similiarly. I'll start at the very beginning.

Contact and Comfort
The author has been to my website and they've liked the artwork that they've viewed there. They've contacted me and over the course of our communication (usually a number of emails, sometimes a phone call) they've become comfortable enough to hire me to illustrate their children's book. The author has supplied me with their children's story (manuscript) to read. We've agreed on a price for the artwork, we've both signed a contract detailing the work and the price, and the author has read my money-back guarantee and has paid the required 30% deposit.
Conceptualization and Sketching
If this information hasn't already been supplied, I usually ask for a written description of what the author has been envisioning the main characters and the book's illustrations should look like. This helps to give me a starting point as I begin to conceptualize and sketch the main characters, while bringing the author's vision to life. If I have any of my own ideas on how to improve the main characters I'll mention it at this stage and sketch it out. The main characters are first designed in black and white pencil sketches and once the pencil sketches are approved, then color is added to those characters. Once the colored characters are approved, then black and white pencil sketching begins on the book's illustrations.

Note: It is very important for the author to be sure that they are completely satisfied with each black and white sketch before they approve it. If the black and white sketch is approved, and the full color finished artwork is then completed, it is a very time-consuming process to go back to the black and white sketch stage to make adjustments.
Character and Illustration Approval
After a black and white sketch has been completed for either the design of a book character or one of the book's illustrations the sketch is then emailed to the author for approval. If it is a book illustration, I always include whatever text will appear on the page(s) to give the author the closest representation I can to the finished book.

The author then (1.) reads the contents of the email, (2.) opens the attachment and looks at the image that's been included, (3.) and then replies to my email with revision requests or approval of the image.

After I've read the author's email reply and, (1.) if the sketch has been approved, I either move on to the next black and white sketch for the book, or I color the illustration or (2.) if revisions have been requested by the author to the sketch, I make the changes and then email back the changes to the author for approval.

This sketching/approval process continues for every black and white sketch and every finished, full-color illustration until the book's artwork is completely finished and approved.

At an agreed upon point during the process (usually when all the pencil sketches for your book have been completed and approved), the second agreed upon payment of 30% will be required.
Artwork Delivery
The third and final agreed upon payment is required after your children's book artwork is completely finished and approved by you, but before it is mailed to you. Once final payment has been received, the print-ready artwork that has been written to a CD is regular-mailed to you. Special delivery options are available at an additional cost. (Back to Step 2 if you skipped ahead)

Back to: Step 2 | Next: Step 4