Thumbnail template for 32 page picture book

 

Here's a thumbnail template for a standard 32 page picture book with separate, solid color endpapers.

For the 40 page template with illustrated endpapers, see here: http://artghost.blogspot.com/2013/07/40-page-self-ended-picture-book.html

And, for more information about picture book layouts, I recommend this post by Tara Lazar: http://taralazar.com/2009/02/22/picture-book-construction-know-your-layout/

40 page self ended picture book thumbnail template

The title pretty much says it all, but here's a little blank template for thumbnailing a 40 page self ended picture book.  A 40 page self ended book has page 1 and 40 glued down to the boards on the front and back of the book, and pages 2 - 3 and 38 - 39 are illustrated endpapers. Anyhow, doing thumbnail sketches can be a very handy way to plan out a picture book dummy.

Putting together a physical portfolio - for Illustrators

I wanted to create a post on putting together a physical illustration portfolio, since I had been furiously Googling how to do so and felt like there was not enough information out there for illustrators.

So, here's what I did (please forgive the terrible pictures):

I bought a screwpost presentation book - I got this really pretty one (the Pina Zingaro Vista from Dick Blick) that has a translucent cover, so you can see the first image even before you open the book.  I agonized about whether or not I should have a title page with my name and contact info and decided that I would rather just start out with an image.

I used Epson double sided matte presentation paper and printed all my images full bleed (allowing for about 1/2" on the left side of the page that would be hole punched and stuck into the book.  I used a folding bone to score the pages so they would lie flat.  I also used double stick tape and adhered the pages together (in particular the double page spreads) so they would be perfectly lined up and not shift around.

The reason  I used the double sided paper is so I could stretch my landscape images across the page - I picked up the tip about the double sided paper from Eliza Wheeler's great posts about her portfolio: (http://wheelerstudio.com/category/portfolio-2/)  :

I picked up another suggestion from my online critique buddy Donna Jeanne Koepp (http://www.whitewolfstudioart.com/) to print any images that were not full bleed on a black background.  I just dropped the images onto a black background in Photoshop and printed it out.  I made sure that any landscape format images that I didn't print across two pages were printed smaller on a portrait size piece of paper, so the book didn't need to be turned in order to be viewed.

I have a couple of different styles in my portfolio, so I tried to arrange my images in such a way that they would flow logically from one image to the next.  I also had two black and white images that I interspersed with the color images.  I tried to start with one of the strongest pieces and end with the second strongest. Finally, don't put anything in your portfolio that you are not excited about.  As I was developing my style it really helped having my critique pals Donna and Brian Bowes (http://studiobowesart.com/) figure out which images were working together and which I should cut.
 
The last piece in the portfolio: