Why planning your illustrations makes you a better children’s picture book illustrator

When I started illustrating for children's picture books I made the mistake of jumping straight into the final artwork without taking the time to plan my illustrations first.

But learning how to plan out my illustrations for a children’s picture book completely transformed the quality of my work.

My storytelling was clearer with more engaging characters and most of all I was really happy with the work that I had created.

In this blog post, I’ll explain what my picture book illustration planning process looks like and why I highly recommend you do the same.

Why it’s important to plan your illustrations

Before I sat down to intentionally plan out my illustrations, I often made these mistakes;

• Characters that were not engaging or drawing incorrectly with no reference
• Incorrect story pacing
• Confusing or cluttered compositions
• Finishing the artwork and wishing I had approached it differently.

A clear illustration planning process allows you too;

• ✔ Strengthen the storytelling
• ✔ Keep characters visually consistent
• ✔ Improve page composition
• ✔ Save time (and creative energy!) during the final illustration stage

Instead of guessing your way through each page, you’ll have a clear direction for your artwork.

My Illustration Planning Process for Children’s Picture Books

Professional illustrators rarely begin with the final artwork. Instead, they follow a structured process. Here are the key stages when planning illustrations for a children’s book.

Reading and analysing the story

Before drawing anything, I read the manuscript carefully.

• What is the emotional journey of the story?
• Which moments are the most important visually?
• Where does the action happen?
• Who are the characters/supporting characters (I basically write down each human/animal/object character that I will have to create!

Understanding the story helps you decide which scenes need illustrations. The best manuscripts allow the illustrator to tell the story, descriptive words are often not needed in the text as the illustrator will show these!

Many picture books have around 12–16 illustrated spreads, so you’ll want to identify the strongest storytelling moments, this will help later on when I start storyboarding each spread, this helps me how to choose scenes to illustrate in a picture book

Creating character design sheets

Consistent characters are essential in children’s books! They need to look the same across the entire book otherwise the reader may become confused. But how to design consistent characters for picture book illustrations?

Before illustrating pages, create I character design sheets showing;

• Different facial expressions
• Different poses
• Their outfits/anything that shows off their personality
• A few of the main characters together showing how they interact together

This step ensures your characters stay recognizable throughout the book.

It also saves time because you won’t need to redesign the character on every page, I also like to use the character design sheets to refer back too when I move onto the final artworks.

Thumbnail sketching for children’s picture books - planning my page layouts with thumbnails

Thumbnail sketches are tiny rough drawings that map out the layout of each page. At this stage its normally something that only the illustrator sees and not necessarily the client. This is because the can be very rough, which is ok!

They help you test:

• Composition
• Character placement
• Page turns
• Experimenting with vignettes/spot illustrations and the use of negative space

Thumbnail sketches are one of the most powerful tools in picture book illustration planning because they allow you to experiment quickly to see what works. If something doesn’t work, it’s easy to adjust.

Think about page turns! - how page turns work in children’s picture books

Page turns are really important in picture books, it's essential when planning that you approach the book as a whole to figure out when is the best point to include them.

A good page turn can create:

• Surprise
• Suspense
• Humour

When planning illustrations, think about what the reader sees before and after turning the page. They help build anticipation before a big reveal, which helps support the storytelling

How I plan my colour palette - how to choose a colour palette for a picture book

Before starting final illustrations, I need to decide on a colour palette for each picture book spread. The overall palette for the book may be fairly consistent, but for scenes where there is a strong emotional or action element, you can use colour theory to enhance the storytelling.

For example:

• Warm colours for cosy scenes
• Bright colours for playful moments
• Darker tones for dramatic scenes

Many illustrators will create a colour rough for the client, this gives the client a good understanding of how the book will look before the final rendering.

Planning illustrations saves me time (and stress!)

Many beginner illustrators think planning slows them down, I used to want to skip to the fun part which was the final artwork! But I’ve learnt that the most exciting part for me now is the beginning of the creation process, it really gets the illustrator gears in my head turning!

Spending time planning your illustrations means:

• Fewer mistakes
• Less redrawing
• More engaging final artwork
• A more cohesive picture book - one that you will be proud of!

It’s one of the best habits you can develop if you want to become a professional children’s book illustrator.

If you found this article helpful, I have created a free illustration bundle. It includes an illustration checklist that I use with my work, something that helps keep me focused and to help me remember to include or think about all these elements that help create engaging storytelling illustrations. You can find it here!