Nearly Forgot: Endpapers and Text Overlays

Yes, I know I said Class One Farmyard Fun was done, but I forgot one last job: the text overlays.

My publisher emailed last week to remind me that I hadn't done them, so I had to stop everything and get them sorted straight away. For those who don't know, text overlays are needed for those occasions where I have writing as part of my actual illustration. For example, the sign on the farm gate, warning about You-Know-Who:

This sign appeared several times throughout the book, as well as another sign, on a different gate, which the teacher ends up flying over:

I create my pastel drawings without any text drawn on them, to allow for any translations of the book. But, because of the pastels, if the designer just drops a regular font on, it doesn't look like part of the picture, so I hand-draw text digitally, which looks more like it has been created in pastels. This 'sits' better into the picture, rather than appearing to float above the artwork. Plus, I think hand-written text works better, making it look like I did it on the artwork:

My art director also realised there was something she had forgotten. Ages ago, I had suggested using one of the earlier sketches for the endpapers. I sent her a low-res scan of this sketch, which is an early draft of the illustration at the top, to see what she thought:

She never got back to me for the high-res scan. So, another last-minute job was rooting through my plans chest, trying to locate the sketch again and rescanning it. This is a mock-up of what she has in mind to do with it:

Unfortunately, I got an email the very next day, saying that they had changed their minds and the endpapers are going to be plain red instead. Bit disappointing, but nothing to be done.

Now I think I really am done. Proofs should be back in a couple of weeks. Then publication is in March. Watch this space!