Henry Holt and Company publishes ‘I’m Sticking With You’ in the US today.
As you can see, we went with a different cover for this edition. I’m particularly fond of this illustration because though I ‘found’ the characters when working on the close up for the original cover illustration, this was the first time I caught them pretty much how I’d always imagined them when seen full figure..
Here’s a few sketches I made on the way…
The first doodles always help to establish the essentials, though there’s always certain details in this more spontaneous stage that are maddeningly hard to translate into later paintings.
this was a step on the way to clarifying shapes and accessories. I liked how calm they were, jogging along rather peacefully like it was a comfortable routine.…
But in the end I decided to give them a little more movement…
I wouldn’t say that this amount of sketchwork was typical. Some illustrations need much less and others are much more. Sigh. But once I begin to know the characters a little better, I can generally loosen up and allow more to happen in the final artwork rather than look at everything too closely in advance with preparatory drawings.