1

Childrens Book Illustration Wk2. Brief: Developing Characters II.

Following on from Developing Characters I, Select the one drawing of your character you feel is right
and work that character into a turnaround sheet (showing your character from 5 angles). Draw a
sheet or two showing a series of action and expressive poses (5 or more) and facial expressions (5 or
more). Then from these create one final, finished colour artwork suitable for greeting card publication.

The aim:
To further develop believable, convincing and appealing characters to be publication ready.

The Objectives:
To draw a character consistently from any angle in any pose showing any emotion.
To create a full colour greeting card illustration of your character.
To tune-in to your own individual style.

The Outcome:
By the end of this brief you will have;
a single character turnaround sheet, showing your character from 5 angles,
a model or character study sheet showing at your character in at least 5 poses or scenarios.
a model or character study sheet showing 5 your character expressing at least 5 emotions.
A final, full-colour, print-ready artwork for a greetings card.

You will understand the value of turnaround and character study sheets.
You will understand the value of maquettes in the design process.
You will understand how to present artwork for publication.
You will better understand your own individual working methods.
You will have had fun!

Convincing, appealing and believable characters are fundamental to the success of any visual
narrative. Maintaining a convincing and consistent character throughout a story is an important skill
for the childrens illustrator. You should be able to draw your character in any scenario, in any pose,
and your character should be able to display a range of emotions.

Developing a relationship with your character helps bring them alive. As you begin to develop a
character you will start to develop a feel for who he or she is, their idiosyncrasies and their personality
and identity. Character development is like giving birth, you will find yourself becoming very involved
with them. Whether they are bunnies or bullies you will feel sure you know them intimately.

Publishers will often have their own ideas about how our characters should look, so although
creating a concrete character is essential, it is also important that you are able to retain a degree of
flexibility and understand why they may require changes. Exploring possibilities in the early stages of
your characters evolution will mean you are less precious which will make any future changes less
painful. Keep all your sketches and character development, publishers LOVE to see these and they can
lead onto work!

Before you start to worry about what it is the publishers may want, you first need to develop your own
style and understanding of your working methods. Pleasing yourself first and then tweaking to please
a publisher is definitely the right way to go about things! By trying to develop a character while
anticipating what the publisher might want, you will find yourself lost and your character will lack a
tangible identity.

Mandy Millie Flockton 2009

 2

Creating a turnaround sheet:

Turnaround sheets (as they are known in the animation world) are an extremely useful tool for
maintaining character consistency. In animation, the character designer draws turnaround sheets for
each of his characters so these can be passed onto other members of the animation team and
consistency is maintained no matter who re-draws that character. Basically a turnaround sheet is a
series of drawings of your character from every angle. Imagine your character is stood on a turntable
and you make drawings as it turns around.

Start by drawing your character in his or her natural pose, face front, to the extreme left of a sheet of
paper. Draw feint horizontal lines across the sheet corresponding to all the important features such as;
the top of the head, the eyes, nose, mouth, chin, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, knees, ground etc.
How many lines you need and where you place these lines is up to you, they serve as reference points
for getting the proportions of your character consistent.

If you find this difficult it can be very helpful to make a little 3D model or maquette of your character
from plasticine, polymer clay or papier mache. Maquettes are usually white but can be as rough or
detailed as you like and full colour if that helps too.

Maquettes

Draw your character in 5 positions: face-on, three-quarter front, side, three-quarter back and back. It
might be easier to draw the face, side and back views first before the views.

The following are a couple of examples of animators turnaround sheets and a turnaround/pose sheet
of my own for an Usborne book on Dinosaurs:

Mandy Millie Flockton 2009

 3

Mandy Millie Flockton 2009

 4

Creating character study sheets and expression sheets (or model sheets):
In the animation world these are known as model sheets. If you have re-designed a childrens book
character, it helps to forget their original context within the story they came from. Draw your
character in a number of poses and different scenarios. If you have problems with particular body
parts such as hands and feet, draw a sheet of those too in different poses.

Here are a few suggestions of scenarios and poses, feel free to think of your own:

1) Sitting in a chair reading a book

2) Playing on a swing
3) Riding a bicycle
4) Picking flowers
5) Kicking a ball
6) Running with a kite
7) Sitting at a table writing
8) Hiding
9) Sleeping
10) Eating an ice cream

Mandy Millie Flockton 2009

 5

Then draw your character showing different expressions or emotions. You can just draw your
characters face or if the emotion employs the whole body, then draw the whole character. You can
draw a mixture of pose and emotion. You will often find yourself acting out and pulling faces as you
draw. Feeling your character in this way certainly helps to make him or her more real. In animation,
characters often have big Manga expressive eyes, however in books for young children such as
picture books, large human style eyes are often frowned upon by publishers, who see them as low-
brow or scary. Creating facial expression in a character who has dots for eyes can be a little more
challenging and requires a subtle approach.

Here are a few suggestions for expressions and emotions, feel free to think of your own:

1) Worry
2) Terror
3) Elation
4) Jealousy
5) Anger
6) Curiosity
7) Contentment
8) Boredom
9) Frustration
10) Upset/crying

Here are a couple of examples of character study and expression sheets. The first one is an animators,
the second is mine, for a Little Tiger Press book.

Mandy Millie Flockton 2009

 6

Creating a final full-colour artwork for a greetings card:

Once you have settled on a character and brought your character to life, its time to place your
character into some kind of publishing context. The greetings card market uses a limitless amount of
characters for all age groups and occasions. Decide where within the greeting card market your
character would happily fit (A little monster Wild Thing character would make a great character for a
little boys birthday card for example and you may like to show him in a suitable pose such as holding
a present with a cheeky grin).
Check out greeting card shops for ideas, age groups, genres, occasions, sizes and formats of cards.
Using whatever media you feel suits your character and you are most comfortable with, produce a full
colour greeting card image (without text) print-ready.
When creating artwork for print, you need to remember that it will usually be scanned on a drum
scanner (cilynder) so it is better if the artwork is flexible and you have left enough white paper/canvas
all the way around the image so it can be taped to the drum (approx 2 or 5cm). The image is usually
created larger than the final printed image:
Common sizes are up 1/2 up and twice up Always check with the publisher the maximum size
they can fit on their scanner if you like to work big.
Remember to add bleed extend your painting or drawing beyond the actual boundaries of the
image (your designer or art director will usually specify how much bleed to leave, generally between
5-20mm). Add crop marks outside the painted area to show the boundaries of the illustration.

Mandy Millie Flockton 2009

 7

Scaling up: The more detailed you work, the larger you might want to make your original artwork.
The easiest way to scale up is to forget maths and start with the final cropped print size of the image.
Draw a diagonal line from corner to corner and extending beyond. If you want to work up
measure the height of the image + the height of the image and draw a horizontal line across.
Where your horizontal line, intersects with your diagonal line, draw a vertical line down. You now
have an area that is one and a quarter times as big as the print size...or -up.
Lastly always remember to put your full contact details on the back of the artwork, and cover with a
protective sheet (such as tracing paper).
If you work digitally, check with the publisher how they want the files presented, ie. Jpg, tiff, raw, psd.
Most books are printed at 300dpi so make sure you work no less than this. Check everything with
your publisher first!
Greetings card resources:
The Writers and Artists Yearbook (the red version!) also published by A&C Black; ISBN-10: 1408111276
ISBN-13: 978-1408111277 Black, contains a list of greeting card publishers names and addresses.

They also have a website: www.writersandartists.co.uk

The greetings card association: www.greetingcardassociation.org.uk

Mandy Millie Flockton 2009