Jason Zimdars · Illustrator
What I learned digitally illustrating my first children’s book
Size and layout
Prince Martin Wins His Sword has 8 interior illustrations—one for each chapter—plus the cover and one additional drawing for the bonus chapter which is offered as a promotion.
When I began drawing we hadn’t yet made decisions about what size the paperback version would be or how the text would appear (because the text rhymes, it was originally written in stanzas instead of paragraphs). I knew I’d have to give myself plenty of room to adjust later so I settled on making the canvas in Procreate huge and square, 5000 x 5000 pixels.
As it turned out, this wasn’t the best decision (more on that in a minute) but it was based on fairly sound reasoning and it all worked out fine in the end. The idea was that I’d have plenty of pixels available—even at print resolution (I did)—and square seemed to be orientation neutral (only partly true).
Square images worked great on Kindle because there are so many devices with different resolutions it’s impossible to make an image that will be displayed truly full-screen on every one. Square images would be large and take up most of the screen but almost always leave enough space to display some text before and/or after. That seemed to reduce the occurrence of awkward gaps in the text and provided enough context that the reader didn’t feel like they were suddenly dropped somewhere else in the book when they landed upon an image. I thought this last point was particularly important in a book for early readers (ages 6–9).
Layers and resizing
On Kindle the illustrations are all inline with the related text and the square format worked nicely even if it seemed to make the images less dynamic. However, when it came time to create the paperback version we wanted to mix things up and create some drama by using full-page—and occasionally—full-spread images. This meant cropping some to portrait orientation and some to landscape.
Because I’d made judicious use of layers in Procreate, the foreground characters were separate from the much simpler backgrounds. In a few cases, simply shrinking the characters and cropping worked perfectly.
However this was more challenging when I needed to make a square image wide. Sometimes the characters could be shifted independent of the backgrounds, and other times resizing ruined the scale of the image. Because I’d drawn these at very high resolution I was able to stretch and redraw the backgrounds but it would have been much easier if I’d given myself a lot more croppable background.
Drawing process
Every illustration was done completely digital. Even though drawing precisely is a little more natural with real pencil and paper, the ability to quickly erase, duplicate, rotate and copy/paste drawings was far more efficient. This was a side project that I saved for weekends so done was more important than perfect. These kinds of shortcuts helped me cross the finish line.
I developed a progression pretty early on that sped things along throughout the project. First I make an initial sketch in blue. Here’s where being able to select a limb that was too large, for example, then resize and rotate it back into place was a huge time saver. With paper and pencil I’d have had to erase or start over.
Once I get the composition where I want it, I dim the blue line layer to 50% and make a new one in red. In this step I refine the forms and clean-up the perspective.
Next, I dim the red line layer and make one more drawing, tracing the previous in black pencil. Here, the focus is on the shape of the lines, getting them smooth, only including the ones necessary, and figuring out where shadows would fall as they wrapped around the forms. Another artist might skip ahead and do fewer re-draws but I find that the image gets better each time so I think it’s worth the extra effort.
Finally, it’s time for ink and color. I use Procreate’s studio pen tool to outline the entire drawing, keeping the sketch layers slightly visible. That helps me see the forms in three dimensions, wrapping lines around them, and pulling forward some elements while pushing others back. Notice below how the neck appears to be in front of the body because of the way the lines overlap.
I continue to keep the sketches visible right through the coloring phase guided by my indications for shadows and again trying to keep in mind the underlying forms.
The backgrounds were painted last, in part because it wasn’t until I’d completed several of the foreground character illustrations that I decided on a style for the background art. Plus I wanted to keep them separate so I could resize later, as discussed above.
Here’s a time-lapse video that shows the entire drawing from start to finish…
What went right and what I’d do differently
Is the iPad a toy?
When I started the project I questioned if I could really do professional, print-ready art on an iPad. In fact, the very first character sketches of Prince Martin came before the iPad Pro existed so I sketched and inked them on paper, then scanned the line art for digital coloring. Here’s a peek:
The iPad Pro paired with Procreate was a resounding ‘yes’ to that question. Not only was I able to complete the entire project on the iPad in beautiful print resolution, but I believe that the flexibility and time savings made the whole project possible. There are numerous advantages to drawing and painting on an iPad but one that gets overlooked is set-up and tear-down time. Getting out paper, boards, pens, ink, brushes, water, paints, etc. isn’t trivial. Being able to get right to work and pick-up where I left off whenever I had a few minutes to spare made all the difference in being productive on this side project.
How big should images be?
Image resolution was a big question, too. While I was pleased that drawing at high resolution allowed for a lot of flexibility when it came time to use the illustrations in the paperback or make late layout changes, I may have taken it too far. For one thing, I started to reach some limitations with Procreate. The high resolution limited the number of layers I could have, sometimes forcing me to combine elements I wouldn’t normally have. I also found that I sometimes couldn’t make the brushes as large as I wanted to. I assume both of these things will improve as the iPad Pro hardware and the Procreate app are updated over time. Before I start drawing for book two of the series, I intend to double-check the final output and draw closer to the final resolution, leaving a less generous margin for error but improving the drawings, themselves.
Emotional impact
Finally, since this was our first book in the series we were starting from scratch. Everything was brand new so we had to figure out the text format, the layout on digital and in print, the style, character design, and techniques; we had to figure out which scenes to illustrate and how many. For book two much of that will already have been decided and I also expect to have the final text before I begin drawing. Apart from merely depicting the characters and action in the story, illustrations have the power to create anticipation, play-off the text, invoke emotion, and even deliver things only promised in the reader’s imagination.
For example, we may want some images to be displayed at the beginning of a chapter to hint at what’s to come. Or an illustration at the end of a chapter might emphasize the dire straits our heroes are in and build anticipation for the next chapter. An image with emotional punch that comes at the right time may surprise and delight a reader when they flip the page. That’s the next level, one I’d like to reach for in book two.
Prince Martin Wins His Sword is my first illustrated book and the first in the Prince Martin Epic series by Brandon Hale. It’s available now in Kindle and paperback format. If you’ve got kids ages 6–9, I hope you’ll give it a read and I’d love to hear what you think. I’ll be starting on book two of the series soon. Thanks for reading!
Follow-up: Behind the scenes of Prince Martin and the Pirates (2021)
Character design
This weekend I made some progress on the character design for the villain in our upcoming book, Prince Martin and the Pirates. Going from nothing to something is the most difficult work as an illustrator—as any creator. But it's also the most rewarding, when that new character comes to life, and looks back at you. I'm really happy with where this one is going.
Behind the scenes: Prince Martin and the Pirates
We're just putting the wraps on the sixth title in the Prince Martin Epic series so I thought it might be fun to share some art from the new book. Even more fun, the images below peel back the curtain, so to speak, and reveal some of the layers of sketches and line art that are done before the final color image. Prince Martin and the Pirates will be available this month at princemartin.com.
Prince Martin and the Pirates is here!
The sixth book in the Prince Martin Epic series is now available at Amazon.com and Princemartin.com. We're really proud of this one—it's the longest book yet and has some of my favorite illustrations in the entire series!
My friend Brandon Hale and I have been creating and self-publishing these books since 2017. They're written by Brandon and illustrated by me. I also do the print book layouts and cover design—it's an entirely self-produced operation.
We make these books because we enjoy creating them but even more because of the wonderful emails and reviews we get—especially those from the parents of reluctant readers who find Brandon's rhyming prose and tales of adventure compelling.