Picture book process drawings

Picture making for me, whether it's for a book or making personal art, is a chance to use my imagination. Here are some of the initial concept sketches from my latest book project, They're Building a House Next Door.

Even if it's the apparent mundane, I try to look for ways to reinterpret the subject using imagination. It all starts with a pencil, and a vision that develops usually very slowly, and with a lot of trial and error.

I can't remember who said it, but I recall back in my animation college days, someone, perhaps a teacher saying, "if you can do it in live action, why animate it?". That was good advice, and possibly more so now with the advent of AI image generation. 

If I was guiding a new artist now, perhaps I would say, 'If you can prompt it, why paint or draw it?'. As artists, I feel it's up to us more than ever to imbue our work with a personal vision and not merely create polished images.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy an earlier post about this project here.

The art of children's book endpapers

I was quite pleased with the endpapers I illustrated for book 1 of this series, The Garbage Trucks Are Coming Today! And so as I set out on illustrating Susan Taylor's second book in the series, I knew I wanted to do something really fun with the endpapers again.

I'm a long time fan of Hokusai, the Japanese Edo period ukiyo-e artist (woodblock printmaking). How fun it might be I thought, to fill the double spread with sloshing, swirling waves of concrete in the spirit of Hokusai's great wave?

Book 2 endpaper design

Book 1 endpaper design

I hope you (and your children) enjoy these endpapers as much as I enjoyed illustrating them. Below are a couple more samples for your enjoyment from book 2 titled, They're Building a House Next Door!

Elephant Story illustration

The 'golden age' animated film Dumbo had been a favourite of mine and a source of inspiration since I first saw it. More than the story specifics, it was the WAY the story was told that really appealed to me. I still recall the emotions that the movie was able to stir in me.

For some time I've been toying with the idea of telling my own elephant story, but in picture book form. Anyone following my art will know I like to draw elephants, so this is not my first idea to feature elephants. I've gone on to write a short story about a family of elephants. It's only a first draft, and needs a ton of polishing.

This is where the illustrations below fit in. In the first one the young elephant is separated from his family by lava. In the second he discovers his father in a grim state. Character designs are not completely resolved yet, so there's still some consistency issues. Think of these as 'concept' illustrations.

It was natural to study the beautiful storyboards Bill Peet made for the animated classic Dumbo. I wanted to try and come close to that film's masterful handling of emotions, and combine this with some of the epic landscape imagery I was seeing in my imagination. It was a very tall order, but this side project was only ever meant to be something to hone my illustration / storytelling craft. As is often the case, my ideas for personal project tend to be overly ambitious. So whether I actually make the thing is yet to be decided.

As it turns out Dumbo the animated film is being remade, so I've perhaps unwittingly tapped into the zeitgeist. I suppose it was only a matter of time before that masterpiece of animation was remade!

The first illustration to characterise the elephants

A value study and the finished illustration

The thing I love about the Dumbo storyboards is the way tonal values are used to help tell the story. I think my digital mockup worked out better in terms of value. I was however happy with the texture and subtle value changes in the final illustration.

The rendering was built up in many passes

Finally I combined a single black watercolour pigment

I hope you enjoyed this update. Feel free to leave any thoughts, comments, or questions below. 

As always your support is greatly appreciated. If you like you can find me on the usual socials below,

https://www.instagram.com/drawnoutstories/

https://www.facebook.com/drawnoutstories

https://twitter.com/C_Bocquee

I also have a new art print shop,

https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/DrawnOutStories?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Online bullying monster

In this post I'd like to share an advertising campaign I've been working on for design class. Above you can see the campaign art and message, along with two mock billboard applications.

We were required to design a campaign around a (thankfully) hypothetical Facebook "dislike button". A fairly abstract brief, but I was determined to have some fun with it. I decided to focus on the button's potential use in online-bullying, also its potential effect on the mental health of children.

The concept was to have a memorable blue monster that would grow larger and larger as children were nasty to each other online. Anyone familiar with Studio Ghibli's films will surely notice the influence in the design of this monster - its body shape heavily inspired by the grotesque 'No Face' in Spirited Away.

Below are a couple of the visual development sketches.

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my illustration and design process. If you'd like to see more of this type of thing, please do let me know in the comments below!

Where do stories begin?

Can a good story idea come from a single image?

That's the question I've been asking myself. In this post I'll take you through a new personal project idea that began just like this. 

It has been a while since my last post so if you've come back, thank you! And if you're a new visitor, a big welcome! Let’s keep going…

I read that the story of Narnia came to CS Lewis in the single image of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels through a snowy wood. It's interesting to note that some writers think in visual terms - I've known a few who do. The beauty of being an illustrator is the ability to test these ideas in visual form, which is especially handy in the case of visual narratives. This brings me to the images I want to share with you today.

The idea began with an image of elephants traveling in a long line.

Not the most original concept. Not much of a concept at all really, and yet something about the visual grabbed me. I began to see what kind of ideas developed as I added a baby elephant as a possible protagonist. A little warmth entered the visuals, and pathos became a real possibility.

I continued to develop the world that they might inhabit, and it started to look a little more hostile. Now there was some tension, a hinting at some sort of drama.

There are numerous themes that I feel these visuals could potentially evoke. At this early stage however, a clear narrative eludes me. I will continue to develop these visuals between other projects and see where it leads. I feel at the very least that a visually interesting series of illustrations could unfold.

In the mean time I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, or if you prefer feel free to get in touch with me.

Willie's rescue

"Willie was the only cheese maker in the land. In the shadows, a slow but unwavering rescue mission was underway."

Crystal Cave

'Walter Chipwitther' character design

 It's week one of my character design course with Stephen Silver. I was really anxious about submitting my homework as there is so much talent in the class! I remind myself to not compare. My homework was to come up with a design for a character called 'Walter Chipwitther', a jolly, wealthy entrepreneur in his 60's. Here's two of my more finished versions. The idea with the rats in case you were wondering was to make him a kind of wealthy eccentric with his unusual pets.

Crustacean sub

Day 26
Topic - Crustacean sub

Unidentified Floating Crustaceans

 

'Grow'vember day 25

Topic - 'Unidentified Floating Crustaceans'

'Grow'vember day 24 - sauropods

Day 24
Topic - sauropods

The Very Cross Bun cover art

With the cover illustration done, it's now time to hand the baton over to the designer. I didn't expect it to be such a long road to this point. I can still remember the day Jennifer proposed a series of 'fractured fairy-tales' to me on the drive to a children's literature festival.

The agreement with the publisher is pretty open ended, which has meant doing without the sometimes helpful threat of a deadline. My perfectionism was left to run wild. And then as jobs, other projects, and life inevitably interrupted, it turned into a stop-start affair. In the end, I managed to resurrect my momentum each time, and I feel I've produce a series of inspired illustrations. At the very least the best I could do.

I would love to know your thoughts, especially if you get around to reading it.

Self-portrait

Selfie drawing

Work in progress.. my version of a selfie.

Milko story

Visual story telling, it's finally starting to click for me what this means. I'm really excited about the possibilities after doing Alex Woo's gesture drawing course. These sketches are based on an experience growing up. One of my first jobs was helping a milko after school. I have fond memories of that job. I've also been reading about story structure. Hopefully I can find the essence of the story that I feel lurks in these memories. The idea will keep warm on the back burner until then. I hope you enjoy these scraps.

The Very Cross Bun ...continued

Above: Using dark cool colours and shapes that look similar to clutching fingers I hope to have conveyed a sense of danger for the bun, (who wants to keep dry naturally).

Below: Children tumble out of school at the end of a day. Bun meets natural predator, school children.

More from The Very Cross Bun. I'm about half way through the final art for this book. I don't think there's a single illustration without a few things I wouldn't change if I could go back and revise. But for those few imperfections, I think there are just as many happy accidents. I have tried to maintain a sense of play in their making, which I hope comes out in the art. Approaching each piece at the outset as an experiment rather than a finished piece seems to have tricked my perfectionism into finishing illustrations that in the end I hope are spontaneous and enjoyable to look at.

The Very Cross Bun

A new preparation sketch for the book project titled 'The Very Cross Bun' mentioned in the last post.

Style guide

After quite a lot of anxiety filled experimentation I finally came up with this piece which will serve as a compass as I finish off a long overdue collaboration with author Jennifer Poulter. You can see some more experimentation with style in this earlier post. I really liked the sparse pen & watercolour of some of those pieces, but in the end gravitated towards this more vibrant, textured look.

More from LITOL series

Here are some of my favourite illustrations from Legends in their own Lunchbox. I did a total of more than 128 illustrations I think, so this is only a tiny fraction. I can gratefully say I took a lot of lessons from this project. One of the biggest was how to simplify. Simplify characters, props, backgrounds, compositions etc. That's a never ending journey, but I do feel I made some progress in this department, and I think this lesson is going to affect my future work.