I'm working on storyboards for two different stories. In this post, I'll chat over a sb and its structure. What is a storyboard? It displays a design, pictures and the visual information flow of a story. As well as visual information, a storyboard shows available resources of a project such as pages. Regarding design, it often shows a position of a text in a picture book. An illustrator plans out ideas on papers and shows them to third parties in a storyboard. A sb is very important to examine if illustration works or not. An editor and an illustrator discuss about a sb lot. An illustrator works hard to create a good sb.
If a good storyboard is done, I feel a half way through in a picture book illustration process. One storyboard is nearly done. I've already recreated the sb for several times. Now, an editor gives me, "Good!" to all images. (Oh, hurray!!) The editor and I are having a chat over an imprint and a title page.
What is an imprint page? Good question. An imprint page/copyright page shows a bibliographical information about a book : ISBN, a publisher, a published year, an author, an illustrator etc. Let's chat over a structure of a sb.
Moon endpapers
This is a common storyboard structure. A picture book has 32 pages (some picture books are less than 32 pages). In 32 pages, an imprint page, a title page and a half title page (such as dedication) could take 3 pages. Sometimes a story starts on page 3 and others start on page 4 or 5 and ends on page 31 or 32.
An imprint is not always at the beginning in contemporary picture books.
Storyboard Template
Contemporary picture books have varied and unique presentations of an imprint and a title page. For example, my "Moon" used endpapers for a story and an imprint page. See above. (*Endpapers paste the content of a book to its book covers). First, we decided how many pages to be used in the Moon. "Maximum pages" was chosen. It meant 32 pages plus endpapers. Publisher Helen gave me ok! In the Moon, endpapers have a dual meaning for readers. It shows the introduction of a story and the ending or the "post script" of the story. Max's father is either going away or coming home. It's fun to design where/how an imprint and a title page would be allocated in 32 pages. I love to look at other illustrators' storyboards and study about them.
This is my first image of imprint pages in a sb and rough (black and white).
I developed this colour rough. Then, I worked on A2.
Back to the sb currently I'm working on. Now, I'm doing character design and "rough." One big name taught me regarding a sb and rough, "That's the time I have freedom most. I can change images and enjoy creating picture books." Yes, that's true. I will develop good black and white and create a beautiful colour rough. That's the way we struggle and have joy in it.
Page division and making a solid story board is a first big task in the process of making a picture book. If you're interested in the process of illustration a picture book, I'd update my work from time to time. I'm a very busy bee now.
Friends, Happy Painting!
Storyboard of Picture Book Illustration
