Illustrating Sharko & Hippo
Sharko and Hippo is a glorious pun-run of a picture book packed with silliness, wordplay and shark exasperation and it’s coming out from HarperCollins next Tues (9/29/20). Written by Elliott Kalan (Horse Meets Dog), it was a lot of fun to illustrate! Here’s some behind-the-scenes of how I illustrated this:
The manuscript Every illustration job starts the same: I get a manuscript. It looks a lot like a blank slate, images wise, doesn’t it? A number of people have asked how collaborative illustrating a picture book is and whether the author and illustrator heavily consult each other before starting. Usually, the answer is no - and that’s by design. A picture book is a full equal partnership between the two, so when I get the manuscript there might be a few art notes or suggestions, but largely I’m get free rein to come up with the art in response to the story. Then the art director/designer and I revise hash out the illustrations between us. I print out the manuscript, and sit down and read and re-read it, adding notes of story beats, things I want to emphasize, emotional changes, any images that pop into my head, etc.
2. Visual Narrative Outline I map out every book with a rough thumbnail contact sheet of all the pages. This lets me hash out rough sequences or important images and track narrative arcs in the whole stories. Then this gets taped above my desk so I can consult it until the book is done. For eg. you see the spreads lined with brown marker and 1, 2, 3 below? Those are marking the 3 distinct stages of escalating exasperation/humor in the story (1 = slow build of the Sharko & Hippo patter dynamic 2 = the back and forth quickens and escalates, gets more absurd, Shako loses his cool even more 3 = rapid fire comedy, height of absurdity, Sharko at his most frustrated, have to build the story to a fever pitch here before the resolution diffuses all the tension.) Bonus fun: how many different ways can you draw a shark freaking out without repeating poses?
3. Thumbnails and sketch dummy I start noodling out the story in a rough pencil thumbnail dummy. This gets revised many times before I send it to the art director, Donna Bray, and we revise it further after that.
4. Visual Research & Noodling Sharko & Hippo were inspired by the funny patter between Chico and Harpo Marx, of the Marx Brothers. It’d been ages since I last saw a Marx Brothers movie, so I watched sequences from a few to see their expressions/banter/body language. Sharko and Hippo didn’t need to look exactly like the Marx Brothers, but I wanted them to be in their DNA. Also, it was really fun reconnecting with those movies - and if you’ve never seen one, if you’ve seen Looney Tunes or any number of 20th century comedy you’ll be watching things with a strong Marx Brothers influence. I was surprised just how dang warm the interaction between Chico and Harpo is when they play piano in The Big Store. So much of their comedy is about timing and slapstick and a push-me-pull-you power dynamic but it’s built on top of this close sibling working relationship. Also, doing comedy while playing piano = chef’s kiss. Chico talks a big, aggro game, but Harpo (who doesn’t talk) knows exactly how much he can get away with, and his big weird expressions are fantastic. Readers are gonna know that while Sharko is losing his marbles, Hippo’s expressions show who’s really calling the shots.
5. Time to learn what hippos and sharks look like! And how to make them stand up. And what they’ll wear. And how their mouths and eyes work. I can simplify and cartoon their characters so much better if I understand the specifics of how their bodies work.
6. Lineup Reference - gotta keep those characters looking the same on every page!
7. Make that book! I print out my pencil roughs on big pieces of Bistol so I can ink over them. The pencils are light cyan so I can scan the inkwork and use Photoshop levels to “erase” the blue lines. Usually I ink with mechanical pencil, but I used Sumi Ink and nibs to have a chunkier, more expressive line.
8. Color that book! I watercolored natural elements like the lake and trees and digitally colored the rest, a method I picked after running some tests. Then: color flat and come up with a palette and BAM - off to the races.
9. Boom! A Book!