Page Layouts

After deciding that a Harvest mouse suits the style and setting that Kaufman has written in her book, I worked on different basic layout ideas for how the cover could look.

         Layout 1                                                   Layout 2                                                 Layout 3

Karin Kaufman

For this semester I had find or design commercial briefs to work from. With the help of Jen in college I was able to find some past contests on 99Designs. As the contests had finished I could not enter them but this particular brief appealed to me as it's within the line of work I hope to go into.

The Brief:


"I want an ebook cover that, if possible, can also be used with Amazon's CreateSpace. The title of the book is "The Adventures of Geraldine Woolkins," and the author is "Karin Kaufman."I'd prefer not to use a photo, at least as the main element. Rather, I'd like an illustration of the book's main character, a young female mouse. I'd like the mouse to look detailed in a *realistic* Beatrix Potter way, and I'd like her to be in a dark brown coat (not the same tone of brown as her fur). I'd also prefer not to have a dark/ominous cover. Also, the stories in the book are set from mid October to late December -autumn leaves to winter snow.It's important to me that the cover NOT look like a typical children's "cartoony" cover. This book is really for adults to read to children, and even to read themselves, so it can't have that pre-school look to it. Other than that, feel free to be creative with everything else! Below I'm attaching three covers that strike me as interesting for the way they look -- more for their flavour than anything specific in them (probably don’t want a dark, nighttime cover as in the last two illustrations)." 

Before starting the actual layout ideas I decided I wanted to try my hand at drawing a variety of mice species to help me decide which one best fit the story settings and themes. 

Messing Around

Quick doodle in Photoshop, testing out different shading techniques, lighting effects and some different brushes.

New Year

Happy new years! Random doodle. A gift from me to you (:

Merry Christmas!

Only 5 days till Christmas! Drew this for a woman last year as a gift for her friend who loves dogs.

Hans Revisited

I've been working on these illustrations for the past few weeks, choosing 4 different scenes I felt were important to the story. I decided to go back to traditional media, as I feel I focus too much on digital formats these days. I've always enjoyed when other children's illustrators work in water colour paints, such as E. H. Shepard, Anita Jeram and Mick Inkpen.

Hans father rejecting him at birth.

Hans leaving his family to live alone in the forest where he raises donkeys and pigs.

Ripping his skin off revealing a black form underneath. 

Hans as a man with his new princess wife.

Sibling Gift

My sister and her boyfriend are massive Doctor Who fans and she asked if I could doodle them both as the Doctor and Clara in the impossible dress. She also asked if they could be drawn in a disney style similar to the character design in the Pixar film "Up".