How to make a children’s book - PART 1

A few of you might have already seen some posts about the children’s book that I’m currently illustrating and I wanted to share some of the behind the scenes with you. 

My brother- and sister-in-law are the authors of “Frog Rock - The Rubbish Day”, which is about helping children learn that our communities function only because many people work hard behind the scenes, doing all kinds of tough jobs so that our lives are more comfortable.

I’ve done illustrations before, but making a full 32 page children’s book is another matter altogether, so I started my research and my favorite reference book is the “How to be a Children’s Book Illustrator '' by 3dtotal Publishing. It really helped with the step by step and figuring out my own process along the way. While I was given almost no restrictions, it was hard to choose the characters and world I wanted the story to play out in (sometimes too much choice is difficult for us creative types hahaha).

Down below are a few early explorations of characters. In the end we chose the frogs, because we love frogs and I’m going to be totally honest here - in my first book I wanted to avoid choosing ethnicities and skin colors and so on, due to the fact that in this day and age we have to be so careful how we portray characters.

Once we settled on the frogs, I further developed the shapes, sizes and explored some character options for the froglet twins, the mum and the rubbish collector. Initially there was a grandfather in the story, but he got cut out when we edited the story down, but who knows? If there are future Frog Rock books, he might make an appearance …

After the main ideas for the main characters were mostly done, I went on to think about worldbuilding and how and where the frogs would live, what kind of furniture or plants they could have etc. The rubbish truck was also a crucial part and needed a good design that looked recognizable.

I hope you enjoyed the sneak peek behind the scenes and you’re looking forward to Part 2 of the development process of Frog Rock :)