Macmillan Children's Book Brief - "The Little Watercress Girl"
BRIEF:
For this brief, the task was to illustrate an original story of your choice, for the age group of your choice.
CONCEPT:
I chose to illustrate a story called "The Little Watercress Girl", an "heirloom" story written by my great nana that had been passed down three generations, as it was told to me as a child.
I named the main character Elsie as tribute to my nana, and simplified the story so that it was suitable for children ages 7-10.
As the story was fairly traditional - bearing a few similarities to Hansel and Gretal, I chose to use a fairly detailed, whimsical style of illustration. I chose the medium of pencil crayon due to the tonal versatility and control that it provides over digital colouring. This also linked back to more traditional, hand-rendered methods, which I felt were best suited to my story.
A BRIEF SELECTION OF MY INITIAL SKETCHES & CHARACTER DESIGNS:
Using reference imagery alongside photographs of myself to work out correct body positioning for my characters, I created a set of illustrations that I tried to ensure were dynamic in terms of composition, perspective and expression - working in pencil to aid control.
A SELECTION OF FINAL ILLUSTRATIONS:
I arranged my illustrations alongside the relevent text in a way that did not overpower the illustrations. I used the typeface Calisto MT, a serif with a soft, yet traditional feel that I felt was easy to read, in point size 14 to further aid this in order to be appropriate for my target age range of 7-10.
