Professional Children's Book Illustration with Procreate

Want to know the secret to illustrating children's books? According to illustrator and designer Meike Schneider, who specializes in 3D and character design, the key is to use a compelling concept. Thanks to her experience working with children's literature, she's learned how to give each piece a rich and unique visual style and tell stories that connect with their intended audience, like Finni & Fredo, a collection of books for young readers that explores human anatomy.

In this course, she teaches you how to conceptualize and create illustrations for a children's book. Under her expert guidance, illustrate a two-page spread for a fairy tale aimed at a young audience, designing the story's mood and its characters. By the end, you'll know how to illustrate an entire children's book following a coherent concept for layout, drawing style, storytelling, and character design.

Begin the course by getting to know your teacher Meike Schneider, who tells you about her career as an illustrator, her artistic influences, and the surprising places where inspiration can be found. She also discusses how to come up with new creative ideas and shares some drawing exercises to help you hone your skills.

Before going any further, Meike shows how to plan out your illustration project, taking into account your target audience, the context, and educational themes. Then learn how to determine the mood of a story and convey it through aspects like color, perspective, and proportion.

Move on to the next step in the process and make some important creative and visual decisions. Develop a unique drawing style for your project and enrich your characters with personality by playing with proportions, silhouettes, shapes, poses, and space. Go over some key concepts of color theory and see how to apply them to your book, as well as how to maintain a coherent style throughout your illustrations.

Now it's time to illustrate! Your teacher gives you some tips on storytelling, imagery, design, and page layout before walking you through how to illustrate a two-page spread using everything you've learned so far.

To bring your experience full circle, find out how to get feedback on your book proposal or illustrations. Meike explains how to continue learning on your own to grow as an artist, develop and market your portfolio, and the difference between self-publishing and working with a publisher.

Illustrate a two-page spread for a fairy tale of your choice.

Beginners with a solid grasp of the basics of digital illustration and anyone who loves children's stories and stylized drawing.

Basic notions of digital illustration are required of this course, including how to work with layers, alpha lock, brushes and other tools, as well as how to import and export.

As for materials, you need a graphics tablet with a digital illustration program (like Procreate, Photoshop, or Krita) or paper and pencils.