Toy Box Tales
I thought I would share the process behind creating my latest children’s book cover. I always start with a sketch – you can’t beat using a pencil, but I tend to work on tracing paper rather than cartridge paper – a trick that I picked up while working in a greeting card illustration studio some years ago. It eliminates the need for a light box – you can overlay the tracings and tighten the imagery up as you go along. I still find this traditional way of working much more natural and fluid – the graphics tablet came into play once the final sketch was scanned in – then the colour was added.
Photoshop is so versatile, I use it everyday on all of my imagery. In this case I have multiplied the pencil layer and then worked underneath it – adding in blocks of colour to each object and then the tone/highlights. I duplicated some of the final toys/objects and then filled them with a flat tone which was them multiplied to create the shadows + a little gaussian blur to soften them off. Finally came the texture – I keep a collection of images that I have taken on my camera for this purpose. I chose ones that reflected the qualities I was trying to evoke – in this case, a slightly worn/used feel that could be applied to some of the toys and box.
Check out the short video that I have mashed together from stills saved a intervals throughout the process.