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Everything Begins With A Story The story is everything. Nothing happens without it. Whether a children's book, novel, movie, television show, or even a video game, it all hinges on a story.
Same at Great Good Fortune. In the Apple Tree Series, Judi comes up with an idea, might hash it out with one of our kids, then she writes. An untrained observer would tell you she can whip them out in 10 minutes. Well, not quite. She can quickly turn out a rough draft, then it will probably go through several drafts before it goes to press. Still, the story drives the process. Later, some of the drawings may suggest changes in the text, but the original story is the springboard. |
Character Design With story in hand, one of the "house artists" at Great Good Fortune will design the characters for the story. Usually that's Evan, but Leslie and Steve also contribute. As you can see, some versions of a character get the axe, and some of attributes may keep changing even up to press time.
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Coloring, Inking, Assembling As characters take shape, Steve begins to draw them to fit a "dummy" -- or mock-up version of the book. He also prepares backgrounds to fit story scenes. The GGF gang uses the tablet app Procreate for these steps. It makes creating page elements in layers a snap, and it facilitates moving and resizing those elements.
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Page Layout When the "production staff" is happy with the story and illustrations, it's time to lay out the pages. With the Apple Tree Series, that follows a template. It happens in Adobe InDesign. From there, a PDF goes electronically to Amazon/CreateSpace for examination. If it meets printing criteria, it's time to make it available for Print-On-Demand.
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