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Raindrop Book Illustration


Raindrop Dancing Pony Watercolor Illustration

written and originally posted on January 16, 2017

Hello! Thanks for visiting.

For the past few months, I've been developing illustrations for a children's book written by my friends John Killacky and Larry Connolly.


The story is about a pony named Raindrop who moves from the California coast to Vermont. She moves to a farm across the country with no ponies, just tall horses. Consequently, Raindrop feels like she doesn't fit in. When she learns to become a driving pony she finds her purpose. With her new skill, she learns to love her differences and feel at home.


Below, you will find documentation of my illustration process for Raindrop's story.


Step 1: Storyboarding

A storyboard is a series of images showing every spread (two side-by-side pages) in the book. Once the author gave me the completed text I used the storyboard to plan how the text would be separated and create thumbnail drawings for each page.



alex mauss design children's book illustration storyboard

Step 2: Character Development

I then practiced sketching the main characters, most importantly: Raindrop. Through many, many sketches and paintings, I decided upon her appearance.


alex mauss design horse head raindrop graphite illustration

alex mauss design horse dancing raindrop graphite illustration

alex mauss design horse raindrop watercolor pen illustration

Step 3: First Draft of Spreads

Using my storyboard, I then made larger-scale, more detailed sketches of the illustrations for each page.


raindrop book alex mauss design horse illustration page spreads barn

raindrop book alex mauss design horse trailer illustration page spreads

raindrop book alex mauss design horse eating dancing illustration page spreads

Step 4: Large Scale Painted Spreads (in progress)

The next and most time-consuming step is the one I am on now: painting the 'final' illustrations for each spread.

raindrop book alex mauss design horse eating dancing watercolor illustration page spreads mockup

That's it for now. You can expect another post regarding this project as it continues to develop!


Thanks for visiting!

-Alex


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