January 2010 – John Manders

Peter Spit… cover ideas

January 31, 2010/0 Comments/in book promotion, illustration process /by johnmanders

A bunch of cover ideas for Peter Spit A Seed At Sue.

These are all rough sketches, drawn about the size of a playing card. One idea was selected, and I drew a tight sketch—

Please add the watermelons!

Art director Jim Hoover creates a comp with sketch and type. Let’s get the other 2 kids in there.

I painted the cover with a watermelon pink background.

This color was thought to be too feminine, so through the magic of digital correction, the background color was changed. (I didn’t do it. I don’t know which buttons to push.)

How books get bought

January 29, 2010/0 Comments/in book promotion, illustration process /by johnmanders

Good article by a bookstore owner about the picturebook-buying process.

The king’s coach

January 26, 2010/0 Comments/in book promotion, illustration process /by johnmanders

There’s a little throwaway scene in Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes where Joe is invited to a royal story-telling competition. For this image I needed to design the royal messenger and the king’s coach.

The story isn’t set in any particular time or place—it just calls for a fairytale look. That allows me a pretty wide latitude regarding costume and setting. The messenger I dressed in something 16th century—slashed sleeves and short cape—with a sash to make him look official. The coach is something I found in Peter Newark’s Crimson Book of Highwaymen—a book about desperadoes who robbed the wealthy travelers of merrie olde England.

Here’s the thumbnail—we’re looking at the left page.

The tight sketch—

Throughout this project I used color to give clues about each character. Everything having to do with the king got colored purple.

Happy Rabbie Burns Day!

January 25, 2010/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by johnmanders

From the Vance & Louise Torbert Collection.

Stella the storyteller

January 22, 2010/0 Comments/in book promotion, illustration process /by johnmanders

Here’s Stella, from Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes.

Thumbnail sketch for pp 6/7. Stella the storyteller sees her rival, Joe Bright, in the back of her magic story-telling chair.

Tight sketch for page 6.

A close-up of my color map for the book. These are small color sketches of every spread, all next to each other. It’s easier to plan the palette, or color choices, for the entire project when I can see it all at once. The scenes with Joe Bright feature warm yellows; the ones with Stella are cold blues and purples. Stella tries to foil Joe with 3 different devices—these are acid green, so the reader can identify them easily.

For example:

Here’s the painting for page 6 in progress:

Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes

January 20, 2010/0 Comments/in book promotion, illustration process /by johnmanders

I just got my catalogue from Upstart Books, and Joe Bright and the Seven Genre Dudes is available! This is my second title I’ve illustrated for author Jackie Mims Hopkins. We previously worked on Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians.

Upstart publishes books with school librarians in mind. Here are some work-in-progress shots from Joe Bright. I’ve already posted wips here and here.

Oh boy, more pirates!

January 16, 2010/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by johnmanders

I just found these photos of the decorations we did for Vacation Bible School at Third Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. The theme was pirates, and since I’m your go-to guy when it comes to pirate stuff, Michelle (our associate pastor) asked me to come up with something.

I sketched images for banners, then gridded them off and transferred the designs onto 12 ft lengths of Kraft paper. We grabbed every jar of poster paint in the playroom, then 3 of my Sunday school students, Emma, Charlotte and Hannah colored in the areas I’d outlined.

Michelle needed an area for kids to sit, so we bought a cheap rug and I painted a treasure map on it in acrylic paint. I don’t remember what the tiki hut was for.

Henry model sheet

January 15, 2010/0 Comments/in book promotion, illustration process /by johnmanders

Here’s the model sheet I came up with for Henry. This was a few years ago. I was working along the lines of classic model sheets for say, a Disney character, with the proportion lines and head-height. Nowadays my model sheets are a lot looser, with many more poses scattered over the paper.

The big picture

January 10, 2010/0 Comments/in illustration process /by johnmanders

Over at How to be a children’s book illustrator, they’ve got some video of Brian Selznick explaining his creative process.

The key idea to take away is this: creating a successful picture book requires having a vision for the entire project. You can’t think in terms of ‘one illustration at a time.’

Brian accomplishes that by making a little dummy—a cut-and-pasted version of the book made out of his sketches—so he can see the entire book while he’s still creating it.