BABY STEPS is coming out in less than a month!
Baby stands / Baby lands
Baby falls / Baby bawls
Brother cuddles / Brother snuggles
Brother clasps / Baby grasps
Follow along as a young boy becomes a big brother and experiences the new noises, smells, and “firsts” a baby sibling can bring, including baby’s first steps! With simple, sweet rhyming text—and stunning, full-color illustrations—this book is an ode to siblings everywhere.
Kimberly Derting wrote this simple and sweet rhyming story and I had the best time illustrating it! Here’s how I made this book with lovely ABRAMS APPLESEED team.
First steps : Who are they?
The “challenge“ I had this story was the simplicity of the text. As you can see below the simplicity of the text allowed me to explore and expand. It was up to me to figure out who the story is about.
So I got to work. I started with doodling the brother because the story is from his point of view. The story didn’t give the brother a name so I named him which helped me imagine. Meet Jun.
Then I wrote down what his personality might be. What his likes and don’t likes are. Even gave him a little scar on his eyebrows and how that happened. Writing it down helped me figure out how he might move, how he might express himself and most importantly how he changes after his baby sister arrives.
Next was Saya, Jun’s baby sister. From the story I imagined her to be more outgoing than Jun. The story’s highlight is when Saya takes her first step. To get to that, I wanted Saya to be the active type that wants to just go go go. And always rely on Jun to help her out.
It was also very important to practice drawing Saya from a newborn to a toddler. I gathered my daughter’s photos. I looked at my sister’s kid. And I sketched my friend’s kids. Yes it truly takes a village <3
Then it was mom and dad’s turn. It took a bit to figure out mom’s personality and looks. I had a difficult portpartum period. People say to always draw from my heart. But I didn’t want to express that difficult time in this book. I did however tried to be honest about it in her looks. In the first few pages, mom’s hair and clothes are a bit messy. Her expressions are a bit tired. Even though it’s not written in the story, I wanted to make sure I paid extra love to the parents.
I sent the sketches above to my editor. She didn’t ask for it. But I wanted to make sure how I thought about the characters were in line with what they imagined. I’m glad I share it because I got a “this looks great!“ email back :)
My editor wanted to see color and treatment examples. So I put together the illustrations below. I wanted to be heavy on the pencil lines for this book because the story had so much fun energy. I got a speedy approval on these so YAY!
Thumbnails, sketches and everything nice
After the character design approval I moved onto thumbnail sketching. I learned this step in art school. Thumbnail sketches are basically tiny loose doodles. It’s usually used to figure out composition and flow of the story. I use index cards so I won’t be precious with it. I can also easily swap the pages or do multiple versions of a particular spread (see below).
I fold the intex card in half so to remember the folds in the book. You never want anything imporant in the middle.
Final steps : Illustrations and hand lettering
I don’t show my thumbnail sketches to my editor. But I do share my sketches. Below are some examples. Notice how I still experiment with composition.
My editor and I went back and forth on the sketches. Then we realized the brother looked a bit older than we wanted. My editor mentioned maybe it was the hair. I was kind of attached to the middle parted hair so I kept it but make it shorter. I also adjusted his proportion and added more cheeks.
I love this part of the process because I get to collaborate with the team and really figure out how to make the best book together.
I also got to do some hand lettering in this book! I was SO EXCITED! And in the parts where my hand lettering wasn’t used, ABRAMS team did an amazing job finding fonts that was close to my hand lettering.
So there you have it! I am so excited to share this book with you next month! BABY STEPS is a great book to read with your kids, kids to read to their younger siblings and gifts for kids! I put a lot of love into this book (and fun easter eggs on the end papers ;) ). If you have any quesitons about the process or about the book, please comment on this post <3
