Using dip pen nibs and indian ink I start inking in the spreads. This tracing is for my current Japanese picture book work-in-progress Yozora o Miageyo. Using a light box these photocopies are then traced on onto watercolour paper and any remaining underdrawing penciled in directly on the artwork paper. Once I get the green light from the editor or art director I print out a copy of the pencil dummy and blow the A4 spreads up to around 115% bigger than the final book size on a photocopier. There’s usually some to-and-fro between publisher and my studio, adjustments and resubmissions, before I get the go-ahead for finals. I use a computer to re-position, adjust, add, and edit the pencils until I’m happy with things, then the text is dropped in to make a pencil dummy and sent to my editor as a pdf for approval.

This is a pencil rough for Crinkle, Crackle, Crack – It’s Spring!ĭummy page from Crinkle, Crackle, Crack – It’s Spring! The rough sketches are scanned and assembled into a picture book layout at the correct size and proportions of the finished book (in the past I used InDesign for this but have recently switched to Clip Studio). As these are still much smaller than final artwork size it’s still very flexible, pencils can be rubbed out, redrawn or adjusted quite easily. On sheets of ordinary A4 ( 210 × 297 mm) copy paper I draw more developed pencil roughs, one A4 sheet per spread (so A5 148 x 210mm) for a single page. This is the storyboard from Halloween Forest. The whole book is first plotted on a storyboard, with small thumbnail idea sketches to get a basic idea of the approach, also decide how the book flows, patterns, tone etc. Member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), Most of his work is based on pen and ink drawing, coloured traditionally in watercolour, or adapted digitally. John divides his time between Japan and the UK, with agent representation in the US. Establishing a studio in Tokyo, he worked on illustration for a wide variety of clients from advertising to editorial, whilst producing children’s books for publishers across the globe. John Shelley studied children’s book illustration at Manchester and debuted in London before skedaddling off to Tokyo for very many years, seeking the connection between Ukiyo-e and Ultraman.

MVP* by John Shelley