Beetles, Dinosaurs and Cowboys

Obviously to appeal to children there will be colour and I will adopt a new illustrative style that is both simple yet complex as I feel this kind of bold style will appeal to both Liberty buyers and to the children I am aiming them at. 

To start I took some books out of library as a referencing start point and came across some lovely styles that really appeal to me and will also suit the style I want to employ. 

The way Steve Jenkins' illustration are present in this book are properly charming. His use of shape and line is along the same lines as what I want my finished Illustrations to turn out like. The way he has mixed some education with them is also something worth thinking seriously about as it could give my products a certain edge over others. And it's something I really believe should be promoted more amongst the young, art and education. 

Following on from the previous point I also want to do something similar on the inside covers as well. I know from my own childhood, where my parents nurtured and allowed my creativity to grow through exciting educational books, for example the Horrible Histories series that were popular when I was younger. They both interested me visually and through that the facts they were giving seemed more important and interesting to me. 

I think the illustration below is lovely, through the use of illustration he gives you the academic side in a visually interesting way. 

The dinosaur idea kind of stemmed from a post I'd seen online a while back and screen shotted. I thought it would be funny to introduce a new idea of what dinosaurs could have looked like. 

Although the illustrations in this book are fairly classical, it is still a good reference point for the basic shapes I will need when it comes to producing my illustrations. 

http://cmkosemen.com

Although gun imagery with the cowboy theme is a big no no, I have looked through a massive toy directory from the library and thought the colours used on old toy guns were actually really nice and will look into a way of bring them in on my colour palette. 

The patterns on them are also really nice and I will probably try to include similar type things in my sketchbooks. Maybe even as small vignettes on my pages... hmm

I absolutely adore this image, I may even incorporate my own interpretation of it for this brief. It's fun and that's what I want these books to be about.