Tackling Expression and Consistency

Hi readers! In my last free inquiry post, I introduced my old picture book, which was more of a concept based book, rather than a story. Because of this, there were two new challenges I had to face with the book that I am currently working on. First off, I’ve never had to draw one consistent character and secondly, I’ve never illustrated a character’s expressions for storytelling. As I continue to work on my final outlines, I find myself erasing and redrawing my characters’ facial expressions to get the right mood. The hair is hard to keep consistent within all the illustrations too. I constanly go back and forth between illustrations to make sure the hair is the same length and volume. I chose a pretty simple mushroom cut (inspired by my childhood haircut) in order to make it easier to draw the hair consistently.

The smallest changes in an eyebrow’s angle changes the character’s whole entire mood and expression. Eye placement and mouth placements also make big differences that are really noticeable. I had a lot of fun with the expression tests that I did in the image above.

My Progress: I’ve been able to work a lot more on the picture book so yay! The final outlines are getting done slow and steady, but I’m really liking how they look so far! Spread 3 wasn’t working out the way I had planned so I’m going to have to go revisit that one later.

I’ve now completed five spreads so I’ve got 7 left to go! With the pace I’m going at, I’m pretty sure I won’t be finished the book in its entirety by December 6th, but I’m hoping to have finished the final outlines and started working on the colouring. The dream goal would be to have the illustrations all complete by December 6th. I hope to continue working on the book through winter break to complete it!