Evolution of an Illustration

I was recently commissioned by FarFaria to illustrate Clement Moore's classic Christmas poem, "Twas the Night Before Christmas."  FarFaria is an app for the iPad and their stories are published for that device (to be honest, I'm not sure if they can be read on other tablet devices or not).  This version I created for them is due to be released on December 24th.  Here is a sneak preview of the evolution of one of the images I created for the story.

Storyboard panels for pages 9-12

Designing for the iPad can be a bit of a challenge.  Unlike a traditional picture book where you have the ability to have an illustration cross over the page gutter (the division in the middle of the book where the pages are joined) to cover two pages, an illustration for the iPad is limited to the size of one screen at a time. For FarFaria's app the main part of the illustration needs to fit within an area approximately 6 x 7 inches (the text will cover the lower portion of the illustration, so any important information needs to be in the aforementioned dimensions above the text).

For this job, the art director requested that I create the illustrations in a specific style. He cited an older illustration of mine from my website that he liked and asked me to create the story in that style. The first step in creating the illustrations was to draw storyboards, one sketch for each page of text. I created these as digital pencil sketches, four to a page. Once these had been approved, I enlarged the sketches to the appropriate size and refined them. For this blog I will be showing the evolution of page 12. All of the art was created in Painter version 12.

Above is the enlarged story board sketch that I used for my digital inking

On a new layer above the sketch, I have begun inking the final line work.

Above is the final inked line art

On separate layers, using digital watercolor brushes, I have begun to color the image

The next step is to start adding shadows

The final image with some darker shadows

My First Story for FarFaria

FarFaria is a recently launched storybook app for the iPad.  In early January I was contacted by one of their Art Directors who had seen my online portfolio on the SCBWI site.  To make a long story short, after a nice phone call from their CEO, I was hired to do illustrations for one of their projects. I began work on the story at the end of January and finished it about 5 weeks later.  The app was launched on February 14th and my first story, "The Magic Fish," was published last week.

After they sent me the manuscript, I was asked to do a series of thumbnail storyboard sketches plus a color sketch of the main characters.  Once these were approved, I proceeded with the final art.  For the final art, FarFaria provided me with a template and detailed instructions on how the art needed to be set-up for their app's layout.

Here is one of the thumbnail sketches and then a cleaned up version that I prepared for the final art.

Here is the sketch that I submitted to show the characters and my color scheme.  The first draft of the manuscript that I received had the fish changing color as the story progressed.  After some revisions, it was decided to have the fish remain the same color throughout. 

Below is the final version of the art that is shown in the sketches at the top.  I created the final art using Corel Painter 11. This scene takes place after the fisherman has returned for the second time to ask the Magic Fish for a favor for his greedy wife. Each time he returns to the fish, the sea and the winds have gotten rougher.

The top image shows the illustration with the template turned on.  The shaded area around the edges is a padding area which is like the 'bleed' area for a printed page.  the white space in the lower half of the image is where the text will be dropped in.  The main part of the image needed to be visible in the upper half of the image above the white area and not be hidden by any of the shaded areas.  The bottom image shows the illustration with the template layers turned off.