ALL ABOARD! Book Series

by Andrew Kolb @kolbisneat

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I've always wanted to make a series of books! While I've gotten to write and illustrate my own stories, each one has been unique. This series, however, let me work within the same format while exploring different subject matter.

Let's take a look at how I approached the first book!

I was given the author's text and a brief by the publisher. This included the very basic description of the main character. They left it open so that I could explore a few options and these were the studies that were reviewed!

We started with character option 3 and I began sketching the interior pages of the book! The train is designed with flaps so the outside of the train lifts up to reveal what's inside each car. Above is car 2. After the publisher and author reviewed it, they asked that we change the character's shirt to the sunshine sweater and add a nose, so I added that to round 2 of the sketches.

Round 2 of the sketch phase (now with nose and sweater). This is car number 1.

This is how the book looks all opened up with the flaps down.

A year or two after finishing the first book, I got to work on the second book. The Christmas Train!

The third book, The Airport Train, introduced a few friends for the main character (a frog, a cardinal, and a squirrel) that appears throughout each page of the book.

This is how I plan each book. Before sketching I'm told where the windows will go so that I can make sure what appears in the cutout is interesting. The pink rectangles show the open space of the windows.

I also make sure that the main character moves around the page across the book so they're not always in the same place. Seeing it all at once like this helps make sure there's variety.

I do the same thing with colour studies (below). I make sure I look at the entire project so I can see if I have too much of one colour in an area or if something is confusing. It really helps me envision the final project and I solve most of my problems at this stage before getting into the final artwork.

And that's it! There are more trains in this series and I hope I get to keep doing them for a long time. I really love seeing them all together on the shelf.