The Portrait

This is not the best example of the process in creating an illustration for a kids book, but it’s a good start! I wanted to show a drawing that had been in the original pitch, to show how much Among the Ghosts has changed over the years. Take a look, it’s fun stuff!

The Pitch
I’ve mentioned this before, maybe to friends, but when Amber first told me about the book (back then called The New Newbridge Academy), she said (in text message or e-mail) “think Dora the Explorer!” Not realizing she was talking only about how to envision Noh - the protagonist- I went super simple. I don’t naturally draw like the picture below, but I was trying to find a clean, controlled way to tell a kids book (can you comic fans notice some Chris Bachalo in the lines?).

In this scene, with Noh looking at a portrait of the founder, there is a creepy little girl coming up from behind her. The staging is right, but everything else is stiff and boring. Plus: Egads, the drawing below is totally drawn on a comic back board. I used essentially the same tools as its future iterations (micron pens)…

First REAL Draft.
More than a year had gone by since those initial doodles were drawn, and my style had changed immensely. Now, no will admit this, but I was pretty certain no one at S&S felt that art was necessary for Amber’s detailed storytelling… so I had to up my game. At the time, I was obsessed with Pushing Daisies, and loved how much detail went into everything: the clothes, the makeup, the SETS. After watching a show like that, you really can’t believe in the minimalist approach.

My original layout worked, but Nelly was neither ghostly, mysterious, or creepy. I did kind of a dry brush effect to make her silhouette not entirely solid. My editor, Lisa, loved that.

The Final.
A lot of times when you’re drawing, and not expecting it to be the final, there’s an organic quality that you can’t always recapture. My advice? Don’t try and recapture- TRACE IT! The things that looked good in the approved sketch, I traced on a new art board (I also enlarged it so I could
In creating the final, I had to extend the artwork up a ways. Luckily, this piece only got more creepy as the dilapidated wallpaper continued on. As I drew on, I went with the motto that more is more. You’re looking at this and wondering why I didn’t texture in the floorboards– totally intentional. With the zillions of lines already on the page, and the rough brush stroke that is Nelly’s figure, I thought the bare space would actually direct the eye better to what’s going on, and wouldn’t distract the reader from the story. I could have been wrong, but the picture felt “right,” and I didn’t want to risk it. Plus, my editor Lisa had no complaints!

Next time, we’ll take a look at an image that wasn’t 100% perfect from the start! My editor, in all her glory, definitely had to whip me in shape. But that’s for another time!

_Sina