A Cosy Cat

Designing a fun cat character in a cosy jumper. Love playing with pattens and textures to create this cosy cat. We often get an idea for a picture book sparking of one character and love playing around with a character, getting to know them and drawing them in lots of poses. When we created this character it sparked a series of questions ‘Why is he wearing a jumper?’ maybe it was knitted for him by a kind granny for him when he was just a little kitten. “ What kind of Jumper?’ A knitted one, slightly too big. ‘What could happen next?’ Maybe the jumper starts to unravel and cause lots of chaos!

We begin to create a framework around this character and his beloved knitted jumper. We are not yet sure where its going to take us and are continuing to develop the character and his story.

Sketching

Sketching out some characters today.

Character designs

One of our favourite parts of illustration is designing characters. From coming up with an initial idea for a character to sketching them out in different scenarios and giving them a world to inhabit. When coming up with characters to design, we begin by gathering references, looking closely at facial expressions and getting an overall idea for their personality. We draw our character in lots of different poses. Often we sketch the character over and over again, giving them facial expressions and emotions which helps make them more believable.

When drawing child characters we like to exaggerate their movements. We find that by giving them lots of movement enhances the personality of the character and gives a playful feel to our work. When adding colour to our characters we try to keep in mind the original sketches, so as not to loose the original playfulness and spontaneity of the sketch.

Creating playful scenes

When coming up with ideas for illustrations for book ideas, we often sketch rough ideas of what the characters look like, what they are doing, the environment the book is set and the world they inhabit. We come up with lots of designs. Often our sketches are quite unrefined at this stage, scribbling down lots of ideas for scenes and characters. Later we start to think about layout and perspective and creating an intriguing atmosphere.

We love to experiment with creating intriguing and playful environments, thinking about if its a cold or hot enviroment, what season is it set in, is it night time, who lives there. We also like to think about what colours we want to use. Sometimes its a lot of bright colours, like greens and oranges and yellows, to create a really vibrant scene, full of life. Other times we use just one or two colours, like blues and greys, to create a cold wintery environment.

Little brother and sister sitting in their bedroom

Sketchbook

One of our favourite things about illustration is creating and drawing characters. We reference from lots of different photos and practice drawing different poses and facial expressions. We love giving our characters different personalties and making them come to life.

We experiment with adding colours to the characters clothing, using only a few colours gives our characters a nice feel. We use simple line work to create detail and texture, especially in the hair and on the clothing.