Brody Knows It’s Time
Last year I completed my first book with Tricia Gardella, Brody Knows It’s Time - a tricky book for me, as it contained a lot of one of the subjects often classified as ‘an illustrator’s nightmare’ - horses! Tricia has just begun her self-publisher journey, after being a traditionally published author back in the 1980s. Many of her books focus around life on a Californian ranch.
“Ranch life is made up of different seasons, and Brody knows them all.
Each season has its clues, and that’s how Brody is sure that one of his favourite seasons is coming up right around the corner...”
Here’s a look at the process for one of my favourite illustrations from the book:
I initially plan out the entire book as ‘thumbnail sketches’, which I send to my authors. Tricia had no changes for this sketch.
The rough version of the illustration. I plan everything out in detail, but you can see that I have added a note for Tricia so that she knows what the foreground will contain, rather than my spending ages drawing flowers for the rough. This was created in Procreate on my iPad Pro. I invariably use Procreate for my roughs, it’s a great app.
I do a rough typeset of the book before I send the roughs to Tricia, so she can see how the whole book is coming together.
When Tricia is happy with the rough, I move on to the final artwork. This was created in Adobe Fresco on my iPad Pro. I complete all my books on my iPad.
The final version has the text in a different place, as I’d filled up the original placement area with wildflowers. Usually my text doesn’t move much, but in this case I knew I had room in the sky, so I could go wild with the flowers!
As I’m a qualified graphic designers as well as illustrator, I handed Tricia all the files she needed to upload to her printers, ready to go.
You can find out more about Tricia and her other books by visiting her website: TriciaGardella.com