These are the final sketches for “Good-bye, Baby Max”, written by Diane Cantrell, for you to have a peak at as reference when seeing my splotchy first coats of paint on the finals! The swatches in the corner are colours I am thinking of use to paint that particular spread. I am working on the text layout for this book as well, thus the type application on these sketches… I found working with the type & illustrations at once to be very helpful in creating more dynamic illustrations. I’m quite excited about starting the illustrations for this project.

Tip for illustrators working on stories with multiple children : when quoting the time involved for the project, add an extra 0.5 to 1.0 hour for each person on each page for both the sketch phase & illustration phase…you’ll be glad you did! Diane was very understanding about the extra time I needed for this project due to so many children on each spread!

To see the next step, check out the next blogpost, First Watercolour Wash