matt captieux design

Here is my final completed book containing a front/back cover and an eight pages for the story. I have kept a simple layout benefiting a young audience of 4-6 year olds and I’ve made use of empty space effectively. For the main title I have used the typeface “Sophia” a brush font I found on Dafont , I feel the typeface corresponds well with the illustrations due to its classy and original look , I have also used a secondary font “minion pro” to display the narrative text. I have kept the visuals simple in terms of illustrations predominantly only featuring no more than two illustrations on each page, this has helped make each drawing stand out more. On the front page I have used a standard rectangle shape to hold the title and included the prominent characters in the story peaking out form behind the box. For each page I have used a border consisting of a thick and thin line, I decided to use this as it emphasises that traditional look I wanted. I have proportioned and laid out the text in a variety of different areas to correspond with the positioning of the illustrations. Finally on the final page I have used grass sketch and Used the “sophia” font saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover” I included this as I feel it sums up the book and is a good message towards kids.

Finally I have finished the colour versions of my illustrations,  I am very happy with the final outcome, I have added foliage such as grass and at times added a sky effect by shading in a sections around the drawings in blue. The process I followed whilst creating the illustrations was firstly done by using a waterproof pen to sketch the outlines of the characters , then I used water colour pencils to add shading and textures to the designs then to merge contrasting colours together, I then used a brush adding a small amount of water to it to blend them together. The result in my opinion has turned out well, creating a variety of realistic and vibrant sketches. I haven added an extra illustration of the three rabbits together to give the story a better variety of sketches. I tried to keep the illustrations within the same style trying to replicate the brushstrokes throughout, which has worked well. As well as Beatrix potter I have tried to implement textures similar to Helen Borten’s work.

After multiple attempts to perfect the sketches , here are the final scanned in completed illustrations in a black and white format, I’ve decided to showcase the sketches in this form as it puts emphasis on the raw visuals and features, these are a great improvement from my mock sketches, having paid more attention to detail , the fox running image and the owl on the branch showing the most substantial improvement. I’ve also added grass to the illustrations which fits in with the style, also using shading to add realism and giving them a professional look. As mentioned before I am giving my book a very simple and clean look making use of space, so these will be the only illustrations included, backgrounds will not be created.

These are my final mock ups sketches for the illustrations, I am happy with the overall quality having previously wanted to create cartoon style drawings. I have sketched the characters from a variety of different perspectives also giving each character such as the rabbits unique traits and features. I have given the drawings a traditional aesthetic and have experimented with shading and have attempted to replicate a fur look on the characters similar to Dr Seuss’s style using thin strokes to create the effect. This is a good starting point and I will refine all the drawings re sketching all of them  as the owl on the branch and the fox running could be a lot better, in my opinion.

For my story I have already specified that I will include various animals to feature as the characters in the book. After some thought I came to the conclusion I would use a fox , rabbits and an owl to fulfil these roles , the fox being the main character. My book will be called “Lonely” and will express aspects of inequality, equality, bullying, referring to aspects such as friendship and issues such as judging people from the way they look and stereotypes. Problems that are still very much present in todays society.