Children's Coloring Book

I designed a two-page spread for the LeBonheur Coloring Book "Welcome to LeBonheur Surgery Guide." I sent it to the LeBonheur competition for the opportunity to illustrate the whole coloring book and get paid. Sadly, I didn't get the job.

Page Layout Sketches

For the coloring book, I started with designs of people but then when into the direction on animals. I did research into the symbolism of animals to find the ones I wanted to use.

Character Style Sketches 

I drew the animal characters in pencil to use the scans to make digital line art.

Final Pencil Sketches 

I drew the animal characters in pencil to use the scans to make digital line art.

Vector Lines Progress

For the line art I started with the panda.

Finish

I finished the line art and fixed up the panda by adjusting thickness of the lines on its paws and other aspects. Because LeBonheur was founding by a knitting group, they like to incorporate sewing into their logo. I referenced to it with a dashed line around the text.

Fix-upsI changed the job titles to bold and separated the descriptions to start on the line after, and then made the top text smaller to make more room.

Fix-ups

I changed the job titles to bold and separated the descriptions to start on the line after, and then made the top text smaller to make more room.

“Circus” by Tom Waits

Multi-panel page for “CIRCUS” by Tom Waits. The song is deep and gritty, so that's the mood I knew I wanted in my comic. I chose the section of the song about the character, One Eyed Myra.

"We pounded our stakes in the ground
All powder brown
And the branches spread like scary
fingers reaching
We were in a pasture outside Kankakee

And One Eyed Myra, the queen of
the galley who trained the
ostrich and the camels
She looked at me squinty with her
one good eye in a Roy Orbison
T-shirt as she bottle fed
an orangutan named Tripod"

Sketches

I chose the section of the song about the character, One Eyed Myra. As an animal trainer, I thought she would be a ringleader. I wanted her to look intense and tough with thick cheekbones. I chose the skinny body shape over the bulky one based on how well the ringleader coat shaped her.

Page Layouts

Final Layout and Character Sketches

This final layout takes the best elements from the layout sketches. I also wanted to trying something new with traditional coloring so I tested out my sharpies on One Eyed Myra.

Full Size Sketch

In the pencil sketch I started testing out how the text would fit because I was thinking of traditionally lettering it. I scraped this idea to do a silent comic. I also erased the contents of these panels and redrew them.

Traditional Ink, Pencil, and Sharpie

Because I didn’t have to leave room for text, this left me with space to fill up the panels when I redrew and then inked them.

Digital Enhance

Majorly adjusted the levels to make it gritter and darker. The background is made much darker to set it in the back, bring the panels forward, and sets the mood.

FinalMoved around the right panel line from the first panel

Final

Moved around the right panel line from the first panel