Illustration Technique
By Mike Blanc

The artwork for A Tale of Two Mommies was developed and produced in four steps.

First: The characters were established through pencil sketches that were refined in editing sessions as the story developed. Drawings for each page were scanned into computers to form templates.

Second: The artist used Adobe® Illustrator® vector-editing software to plot each shape needed to build the illustration using curve and corner points that were then adjusted, converting each sketch to a computerized version.

Third: Every shape was then assigned a color attribute based on the book’s color palette.

Fourth: The template was discarded and the image was fine-tuned with softening effects and transparency. Once complete, the illustrations were gathered and placed into the book design for the finished work: A Tale of Two Mommies.