The 12 Sleighs of Christmas Book Cover Process
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This is so cool!
How interesting to see this process in detail--thank you for sharing it here. The final cover is awesome! And I love the snowplow sled design lol. Looking forward to reading the whole story.@DOTTYP You are going to LOVE it! I started using a kuretake a few months ago, with Jake's tutorial, and it is soooo much fun. Tricky, too, though.
(I'm awful, but getting better. xD) After doing a lot of digital, it feels so smooth and magical inking with a brush. 
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@smceccarelli I love the idea of a class focused on case studies! Doing personal projects and learning the process is great, but I think it especially helpful to actually see how people work through things.
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@Sliproot I haven't colored anything entirely traditionally since 2001 (except for a few gallery show pieces). Everything that I've done for print goes through some Photoshop pass, whether I add color to my inkwashes, or add watercolor texture to my digital colors. There's always a mix of traditional and digital.
As for hand generated type vs digital: whatever looks best is the rule.
And actually the art director is supposed to handle all the graphic design for the book. I only do the book titles because I'm good and hand lettering and I convince them that I can do it. For most illustration jobs you're just on the line for the art.
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@Jon-Anderson Yep, it's usually the last part of the job. I typically start thinking about the cover when I've delivered all the sketches for the interior pages.
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@smceccarelli A case study course is an excellent idea. Maybe I'll do one for this entire book in the fall.
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@audrey-dowling Good question.
For that change I redesigned it digitally. I've got a great digital inking brush that I found that's pretty close to the inking I do traditionally. I can't draw digitally on the intuos either, but I draw all the time on my cintiq. It was a huge expense, but it paid for itself after a few projects just in the time it saved me from inking/scanning/editing.
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@DOTTYP Great! Hope you like the pen!
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@Jake-Parker WOW! Thank you so much for sharing your process with us. This is fantastic. I'm envious that it's with Chronicle books, they're one of my all-time fav publishers (literally everything they produce I love - and this book of yours looks like it'll be no exception! I can't wait to read it when it's out). It's encouraging to see their email correspondence with you too - how friendly it is but at the same time quite clear in their direction. I also literally had a geek out moment when I read Kristine's email asking if you had thoughts on the finishing touches (like adding foil) - I wasn't sure if that was something they were open to suggestions from the illustrator on. Given that I'm a graphic designer though that makes me so very happy! I absolutely love details like that to really give it that extra polish and to draw the eye.
The other thing that really stood out to me is your line work and flats in step 6 - holy cow if you left it there and didn't do any further finessing would it ever remind me of Dr. Seuss!
I checked out the 'Look inside' feature on Amazon - I particularly love your stylization of the elves (their noses, ears and blue hair are awesome!). And from the bits of the story I could read it sounds charming and I like the writing style. I'm definitely buying it when it's out
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@Jake-Parker said in The 12 Sleighs of Christmas Book Cover Process:
@smceccarelli A case study course is an excellent idea. Maybe I'll do one for this entire book in the fall.
That would be awesome! I'd be down for taking that class.
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@Jake-Parker I'm dying to know: what was the typo you were supposed to fix? It looked correct to me. I've been looking at the info you provided for longer than I care to admit and I can't figure it out.
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@mattramsey Oh! That was on the title page. I had the E and I switched in Sleigh.
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Looks great Jake! Can't wait to see the final. It is fun to see the process form start to finish. Side note: I have met Kristin and she is just about one of the nicest people ever. How fun to get to work with her!
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@Jake-Parker I should get some work done with the pen in the next few days it seems really nice.
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@K.-W. I love drawing lineart ,but always feel I am no good,hope I improve.
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Thanks for sharing!
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Amazing @Jake-Parker ! Thank you so much for taking the time to share this, with such details! Extremely helpful
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Great stuff!:) let us know, when its out. My kids still believe in Santa, so i can read it to them;)
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@Jake-Parker very generous to share this process... thank you.
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Jake I know that you are really busy .I have Watch your inking tutorial but couldn’t understand how to do feathering please can please a little Exercise on how to do feathering thanks jake
