[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-seawigs-part-3-thumbnail-sketches":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"Hey, do you recognise this Explorermobile from a \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/493835.html\">previous post\u003C/a>? I went with the silliest version, but man, isn't it cute? Just wait til I've inked it up. It's kind of hard to see in scribbly pencil here.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/seawigs_pencil_house-5021e60dc6.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nSo what am I working on right now? Well, this is the first time I've ever illustrated a chapter book instead of a picture book (\u003Ci>Oliver and the Seawigs\u003C/i>, with \u003Ca href=\"http://www.philipreeve.blogspot.co.uk/\">Philip Reeve\u003C/a>), and I've been trying to get my head around the differences between the two formats. With a picture book, it seems pretty straightforward: I have 32 pages (including covers) and I need to fill up every single page with pictures. (Unless I am the super-cheeky \u003Ca href=\"http://www.vivianeschwarz.co.uk/?page_id=38\">Viviane Schwarz\u003C/a> and can get away with leaving THREE SPREADS blank (or nearly blank, after editing). And still get nominated for the Greenaway medal. See \u003Ci>There are NO Cats in This Book\u003C/i>, below.) \\r\n\\r\n\u003Clj-embed id=\"1989\"/> \\r\n\\r\nBut with this \u003Ci>Seawigs\u003C/i> chapter book, there's more flexibility in the number of pages, and how many pages I illustrate. I want lots and lots of illustrations, but I have to think of how they will work best with the story - not to overwhelm it - and also consider how much time I have to work on the book. I didn't really know where to start - there's no official way to do it - so I started drawing tiny versions of some pages I thought could appear in the book, and submitted them to my editor, Clare Whitston. (I have two editors, and a designer, but they were all on holiday and Clare was manning the fort at Oxford University Press.) Here's a sample page. There's a gap where I drew one but didn't like it and couldn't be bothered to shuffle everything around. Things are changing a bit as I take these tiny thumbnail drawings to full-page-size pencil sketches; you can compare the third thumbnail here with the next-stage pencil sketch at the top of this blog post.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/seawigs_thumbs1-84b3a26d0c.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003C!--more Click here for more under the cut!-->\\r\nJust to compare to another book I've done, here's the first set of thumbnails I sent to my my Scholastic editor and designer for \u003Ci>You Can't Scare a Princess!\u003C/i>. It's remarkably similar to the final book, but everything's drawn very simply, in case I need to make changes. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/pspag2_thumbnails-fff7874831.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cb>Picture book secret\u003C/b>: A lot of people who want to make picture books with publishers for the first time don't realise there's a very set formula the publishers prefer to use. It's all to do with cutting paper. If they make books in blocks of 8 pages - 16 pages, 24 pages, 32 pages, etc - it means the printer has to waste the least amount of paper when they cut off the edges. So you don't absolutely have to make a book in 32 pages, and there are ways to fiddle the exact page count with adding extra endpapers and things. But unless you have a very good reason why your book shouldn't be 32 pages, if you stick to this template, you'll have a way, way, way better chance of getting your book published. It's worth printing out a template and actually writing your story into the template. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/thumbnail_template-672daa8a50.gif\">\\r\n\\r\nIt can be quite comforting, having this template: it's one less thing to worry about, you know your parameters. So no template for \u003Ci>Seawigs\u003C/i>, I'm venturing out into the Great Unknown. \u003Ci>Seawigs\u003C/i> features exploration, so this challenge is a good thing, really.","2012-08-16T11:04:00.000Z","seawigs-part-3-thumbnail-sketches",[],"seawigs part 3: thumbnail sketches",1776628724106]