I illustrated Dactyl Hill Squad 3: Thunder Run, written by Daniel José Older. The project included a full-color cover, three black and white single-page interior illustrations, and a black and white map. Continue scrolling to see the development process for the cover illustrations.
Publisher: Scholastic
Designer: Christopher Stengel
Tools:Adobe Photoshop
Scholastic provided me the manuscript to read and the designer and I discussed ideas for the cover illustration. The author had thoughts on what scenes we might use and which characters he'd like to see on the cover. the designer passed those along to me. Selecting the right image was a bit of a challenge because the big exciting scenes were at the very beginning of the book and at the very end. We also wanted to stick to the theme of the main character, Magdalys, riding a dinosaur. Based on the author's ideas I picked two scenes to focus on and did some rough thumbnails to get us rolling.
The designer reviewed the thumbnails with the editor. For the T-Rex stampede they suggested splitting the difference between the two thumbnails and doing a more 3/4 view. The designer also asked to see the giant toad layout again with a few changes.
I sent new, tighter sketches to the designer. From these sketches the team settled on the T-rex stampede for the cover and the designer did a composite to show how the cover might look with the title text. Adding the title to the sketch is a useful step to ensuring the layout of the final illustration has plenty of room for text. More layout changes were in store!
Using the composite that the designer mocked up, I started refining the sketch and working toward the final illustration. I like to start with a value study so I can focus on lighting, shadow, and contrast. I'll refine and render the image until I reach the point where I feel like I can't clarify it anymore without incorporating color. I also use a lot of layers. I keep foreground, middleground, background, and characters all separate to make it easier to address notes. The designer requested layers as well so that he could make little adjustments to the illustration as needed to incorporate the text on the final cover.
I started incorporating color and continued refining, which revealed some layout problems. I added some middleground elements to convey the expanse of the desert terrain, but it divided the composition in a weird way and also conflicted with the dactyl riders. I ended up creating a flatter middleground by turning it hazy, like what you'd see when staring at the horizon in the desert. The designer also requested I bring the background mountain range closer.
As I continued on, the team felt the direction of the T-rexes was feeling more side view and not 3/4 view, so with the designer's suggestion I tried making changes to get the perspective closer to the sketch. We also played with Magdalys's scale a bit to make her more prominent. There were considerable notes as I got closer to the final stages of the illustration so I was thankful to have so many elements on layers! It made making changes much easier.
Here is the final illustration.
The back cover illustration was designed to match the back covers of the other two books in the series: a skyline featuring dinosaurs. I did a set of layout options for the two major locations in book three: New Orleans and the desert. We ended up going with New Orleans. The first book's back cover is a sunset scene and the second book is a night scene, so for this book I did bright daytime lighting.
Finished? Click here to see the book's interior illustrations or return to the illustration page.