Starting a Kid's Book

Now that I've started illustrating the kid's book, I realise how tough it'll be getting all the pages done by the deadline. I would've liked to spend some time experimenting with different drawing styles, but I think I'll just have to use a drawing method that I'm used to, so I can turn out pictures more quickly.

The book is basically about a cuckoo bird that kidnaps a little girl for a bunch of evil faeries, and she then turns into a cat. (That one sentence synopsis probably doesn't do it much justice). It's a rhyming story, so it has set stanzas for each page. For better or worse that means less time spent on text layout. It also has a "gothic" vibe as it's a bit like a Grimm fairytale.
Anyway, first off I have a bunch of rough concepts (no time to clean them up) of the various characters I need. I decided to use the style of drawing I used for Monkey Girl.

Cuckoo bird

This girl's design is a pretty stock "cute" design. I used the same structure for monkey girl, and my anime attempt. (I like to steer clear of anime style, but so many people draw that way, it's starting to subliminally influence me)

The idea behind this cat was a bit of a combo of the cat from Bob the Builder and the one from Kiki's Delivery Service (anime again dammit). Hey, I'm not too proud to say where I steal ideas from (better I point it out than some smug fanboy).


(this faerie character I came up with seems really familiar. I think I've ripped something off without realising it. If anyone thinks these look like something that already exists please tell me)

Usually I'd spend more time fine tuning characters - but not much time. This probably means that the characters will go a bit off model in the book itself. It also means that the ideas I steal influences I use will be more obvious. Hopefully it won't be too noticeable.