I received some more storyboard sketches for Steven’s book today. As I looked over these storyboards I was trying to decide if I want to post these sketches as sort of a “How it was done.” documentary. This would share with all of you how the process of writing and illustrating a children’s book is done.I know it seems that writing and illustrating is easy, but it actually is an ongoing process that changes and evolves. Recently Ron, my illustrator, and I discussed adding some additional pages to get the visual story across better. These pages were not in the original story outline.

Adding pages adds more to the equation than just more content. You have to take into consideration printing costs, the added weight to the book, and shipping costs. Additional changes may include character changes. Sometimes physical changes to the characters occur later in the development. Those changes impact earlier drawings. For instance, let’s say we we realize that a character should be wearing a specific style of shirt, but we don’t realize this until 15 pages in. So this causes us to redesign the beginning of the book.

Like I said, it’s not as simple as it sounds.

So, what do you think? Should I post the storyboards? Leave comments and let me know.