Children Book Critique

Stefan Hohls

Hi
These are the first few pages I have done for the childrens book that I am illustrating.The first book I'm illustrating. It's targeted at 7-10 year olds and am requesting some honest critique and feedback. I have time to fix things so I'd like to see if I'm on the right path to getting this book published. The book is set to be 24 pages. Here are pages 1-6. The story is about a group navy ships that encounter a series of strange things while on patrol out at sea. The main character is the light grey ship that bleeds onto both pages on page 1-2.
Thanks

Page 1-2 1- 2.jpg
Page 3-4 3-4 svs pp.jpg
Page 5-6 5-6 svs.jpg

Lee White

@Stefan-Hohls cool that you are writing and illustrating a book I think these are a good start, but I have some feedback for you.

I would HIGHLY recommend starting with many sketches and roughing out the entire book. That way you can adjust quickly and easily. Doing finished paintings isn't needed just yet and may actually hurt the overall look of the book.

Overall I think you are going to have a very tough time with this book since you just basically have a horizon line from the ocean andthen some boats. Kids that are 7-10 years old will be bored very quick with this kind of set up. Kids 2 -4 years would be a better intended target market.

Find ways to make the layouts interesting. Docks, bridges, etc. can add variety to water scenes. Also time of day and weather can make a dramatic difference in making something look interesting. But really you need to see what kind of story you want to tell and then enhance that. Right now I'd suggest going back to the sketch phase and working on compositions and story telling.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing more of your work here in the forums. : )

Lee

lauramarie_art

I'm not sure I can comment on the illustrative aspect (I'm still learning myself) but I would say that when you do a layout where you might not have all the text, it's better to use lorem ipsum text. It's gibberish but looks similar enough to real words that your brain happily ignores it. There are generators online where you can specify how much text you need and then copy paste it into what you're working on. https://www.lipsum.com/