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.

I’ve started receiving sketches of the illustration for my next book, Steven the Vegan. My illustrator, and long time friend Ron Robrahn is bringing my vision to life. Ron has always been an amazing artist. He does a great job of taking words on a page, and breathing life into them. You could tell him you want to see an orangutan in a kitchen making toast,  upset that the jar of jam is empty, and he would whip it up in no time flat. (Why do I have a feeling that when he reads this, he will draw it.)

In high school, Ron and I created a computer animated cartoon and won the Art Contest that year. Ron drew the characters on graph paper, and I recreated them pixel by pixel on an old Apple IIe using a program called Take II. Each frame was custom drawn, and edited. I can’t remember how long it took us, but it only lasted about twenty seconds, and that included a commercial interruption.

After high school, Ron and I lost touch. We occasionally were able to reach each other, and I learned he was doing caricatures for Disney in Orlando. I had already hired an illustrator for “The Tale of Eartha the Sea Turtle” when I found him on Facebook.com. I sent him a PDF of the book, and asked him to “draw” Eartha. Of course, he nailed it. He created some illustrations for the web site, and I knew he would be illustrating my next book.

We bounced some ideas around. Ron has some characters he already has created that we are looking into putting into print. My latest book, Steven the Vegan, is what he is illustrating now. I described Steven to him, and BAM again, he nailed it. Below is a sample sketch of what some of the illustrations will look like. I am extremely glad to be working with Ron on this, and hope to be working with him for a long, long time.