Creating illustrations for a children’s book that will be printed requires careful planning and execution. As a reliable children’s book printing manufacturer, I want to provide aspiring children’s book illustrators a step-by-step guide to successfully illustrating a book for print.
Why Print Children’s Books Need Special Illustrations
Children’s books tell stories. And the illustrations bring those stories to life in a child’s imagination. That’s why creating artwork for a printed book comes with specific requirements:
High Resolution
Print books need high resolution images that hold up on paper. 300 DPI is the standard print resolution. Lower resolution images will look pixelated and blurry once printed.
A DPI of 72 is fine for web or screen use. But for a printed children’s book, 300 DPI illustrations are a must.
Bleed Area
When a book page gets trimmed during printing, a thin white border can appear if your illustration doesn’t extend to the edge of the page.
Adding a bleed ensures color extends past the page edge. This prevents visible borders after trimming and creates full page illustrations once printed.
Color Matching
Color displays differently on screens than printed paper. So you need to convert artwork from RGB to CMYK color mode for printing accuracy.
CMYK has a smaller gamut that approximates printable colors. Without converting, your vibrant RGB illustrations may print dull or incorrectly.
There are a few other technical considerations for preparing print artwork. But these 3 are crucial to illustrate children’s books destined for print.
Next I’ll explain a step-by-step process for creating colorful, captivating illustrations ready for publication.
How to Illustrate a Children’s Book for Print
Illustrating children’s books for print has 6 key steps:
- Choose an art style
- Create a storyboard
- Draw line art
- Add color
- Text and page layout
- Export print-ready files
Let’s explore each step for successfully illustrating a printed children’s book.
1. Choose an Art Style
Children’s book art styles vary widely. The style you choose impacts how you illustrate the book.
For example, simplistic cartoon or gesture drawing has a more spontaneous look. This art style starts with rough sketches you refine during the illustration phase.
On the other hand, painting intricate scenes with fine details requires more planning first. You’ll need good reference materials to accurately render elements like flowers, animals, textures, etc.
Another consideration is whether to create art digitally or traditionally. Both work beautifully in children’s books when done properly.
I suggest researching books with art you admire to find styles that inspire you. Make notes on elements you want to incorporate into your own illustrations.
If you already have a set style, adapt it to align with common children’s book aesthetics. Books for younger kids often use:
- Bright, saturated colors
- Simple compositions
- Visible facial expressions
- Playful shapes and figures
For elementary ages and up, you can introduce more:
- Complex backgrounds
- Creative layouts
- Visual metaphors
- Stylized characters
2. Create a Storyboard
A storyboard maps out how to visually tell the story through a series of panels (illustrations). It determines exactly what you’ll draw for each book page before creating finished art.
Pick Key Scenes
Read through the full story and highlight pivotal moments to illustrate. For fiction books, capture:
- Major plot points
- Interesting locations
- Character introductions
- Emotional scenes
If it’s a non-fiction topic, choose dynamic activities, experiments, or concepts to depict visually.
You likely can’t illustrate every detail. So focus on drawings that enhance the storytelling at key parts.
Make Page Thumbnails
Plan thumbnail sketches for each page to organize story beats in sequence. This helps pace the imagery to build excitement.
Try different layouts for the number and size of panels per page too. Varied compositions keep readers engaged as they turn pages.
Secure the author’s input to help fine-tune your visual narrative. Reiterate until you and the author love the story flow in thumbnail form.
Finalize Character Designs
With scenes and page layouts approved, finalize character concepts if needed.
Even for styles with simpler figures, subtle distinguishing traits strengthen storytelling. Readers instantly recognize characters as individuals.
If depicting people groups, make sure to represent diversity through gender, race, ability, etc. Kids need to see themselves in books.
Refine Settings
Flesh out other story elements like settings too. Detail location changes, weather shifts, object transformations or anything described that appears visually.
Immersive worlds suck children deeper into imagination where magical things transpire!
With your storyboard fully built out, you have a reliable blueprint for crafting polished art.
3. Draw Line Art
Before adding any color, carefully illustrate line art of figures and shapes that define composition outlines.
It’s easier to perfect pen and ink foundation drawings first. Then color in based on established contours and forms. Altering line art once colored gets complicated fast.
However, I doesn’t mean you must finalize lines before ANY painting. Some artists work in layers, blocking in colors before refining certain edges. Find what suits your style.
Just don’t fully render illustrations until foundational elements sit right compositionally. That includes removing any unnecessary “guide” sketch lines obstructing clear, intentional outlines.
Speaking of sketchiness…
Preserve Organic Quality
Especially with playful, energetic children’s illustrations, retaining a touch of pencil texture enhances warmth. It contrasts the perfect uniformity computers generate.
So avoid over-polishing artwork with too many corrections. Let originally drawn lines shine through color in spots for that handcrafted signature.
Just be judicious where rough edges remain since too much distortion looks sloppy. Masterfully toe the line between unrefined and overproduced.
When line art releases its full narrative potential, move on to create eye-catching color!
4. Add Color
Color choices hugely impact a children’s book’s personality and effectiveness communicating through imagery. Vibrant palettes captivate kids the most.
Choose a Color Scheme
First determine an appealing color scheme. Inventive combinations inspire imagination better than drab or predictable ones.
Complementary colors pop beautifully. Analogous harmonies keep things cohesive. Color theory provides guidance.
Deliberate, strategic use of color builds symbolic depth too. Connect choices to details described in the writing through metaphor.
If a somber cemetery scene emerges, for example, mute the palette to evoke that emotion. Allow brighter colors in celebratory scenes or on beloved characters.
Settling on a color scheme early provides direction for illustration stages. But don’t start randomly filling shapes quite yet…
Master Values First
Work out value structure before applying any color. Value indicates relative lightness or darkness of a color.
Proper value organization ensures compositions pop dimensionally. So begin coloring line art by painting basic lights and darks only.
Once confident brushing accurate shadows and hot spots tailored to light sources, layer in colors from your chosen scheme. Values make colors sing!
With captivating illustrations finally complete, weave words and art into an immersive experience.
5. Text and Page Layout
Now to direct attention in logical sequences so readers absorb textual and visual details in tandem. This maximizes retention and enjoyment for young minds.
Carefully arrange space on pages so neither words nor imagery overwhelm. Density challenges comprehension. Negative space lets elements breathe.
Establish Visual Hierarchy
Vary text and image size relationships across pages to denote emphasis. Dominant imagery might carry a scene when minimal narration required. Other times text occupies more real estate to describe critical events the drawing merely supports.
strategic text wrap maintains harmony. Don’t force shapes to fit arbitrarily around copy. Let images dictate how words flow naturally to avoid awkward compositions.
Refine Viewing Order
Clever interplay between text and art encourages eyes to journey specifically across pages for intuitive visual continuity.
Occasionally separating illustrations into spotted vignettes maintains movement too. Single full page drawings sometimes stagnate pacing.
Review spreads to guarantee viewers seamlessly connect narrative dots using your purposeful visual hierarchy and layout expertise.
Double Check Consistency
Finally audit every page for errors across:
- Spelling and grammar
- Color correctness
- Character accuracy
- Composition continuity
Perfectionist inspection at this late stage ensures polished pages proceed to publication flawlessly.
That satisfying sense of completion primes your project for final mechanical stages converting beautifully constructed art into tangible reality kids grip excitedly.
6. Export Print-Ready Files
While exporting your children’s book illustrations for printing, precision optimizing settings avoids distorting hard work established so far.
Convert Color Profile
Since RGB only produces accurate colors on light-emitting digital screens, artists must convert artwork to CMYK color profiles matching physical inks printing presses use.
Otherwise once sent to publishers, colors may shift with unwanted saturation or brightness changes. CMYK mimics ink limitations so you see approved colors in advance.
Bump Image Resolution
Uprez exported illustrations to 300 DPI meeting press-quality image resolution. Lower PPI levels lose clarity once professionally printed. Uprezzing from too low injections visual artifacts you don’t want.
Include Cut Lines
Export files containing crop marks and bleed areas defined earlier. This provides printers the cutting guide to prevent unwanted borders bleeding through post-trimming if you didn’t extend imagery sufficiently near page edges.
Save As Print Standard Format
Finally export high resolution CMYK children’s illustrations with cut lines as print-standard PDFs or TIFF files. These enable printers or publishers to smoothly flow embedded artwork directly into professional layout programs assembling your mass reproduced children’s book!
Bring Children Joy Through Print Books
And that wraps fundamentally sound technical and creative advice for illustrating vibrant children’s books destined for print from imaginative conception to flawlessly formatted completion!
Remember drawing skill constantly improves through practice. So don’t abandon lifelong aspirations if initial attempts unveil room for growth.
Study favorite artists for inspiration, but mostly keep honing personal voice through self-discovery. In time, confidently unleash colorful visions only you ordain.
Soon fan letters from impacted young hearts remind why you create in first place – bringing children joy while influencing better futures!