Children’s Book Illustration: ‘The Reindeer That Couldn’t Fly’
After the success of The Alnwick Garden’s first children’s publication last Christmas, ‘The Forgotten Snowman’ returns again this year in a brand-new festive story, ‘The Reindeer that couldn’t fly’.
The story is an inspiring tale of a small reindeer called Charlie, who embarks on a big adventure. Together with The Snowman, Charlie attempts to rediscover the magic of Christmas and get his friend back on Santa’s nice list.
The Alnwick Garden approached us in May this year with the first draft concept script which we were delighted to visually bring to life. Starting with pencil sketches, we created all the main characters in a standard pose to get the features and heights consistent. Father Christmas and his elves return as they were last year, as does The Forgotten Snowman, while Henry and Evie are slightly older and more grown up.
Our biggest challenge for this years book was to create Charlie! Small enough to be cute, large enough to be in proportion to The Snowman and full of charm and kindness. After a few rounds of amends, we settled on an illustration style and design that successfully visualised the friendly and bubbly Charlie. As the content of the story was refined and amended, the team began to sketch out a page plan and storyboard, perfecting each layout to capture key moments within the storyline, whilst incorporating characters from last year’s book.
This year we opted for a traditional pencil sketch illustrative approach, with full bleed illustrations to tell the heart-warming Christmas tale. Our team worked on illustrating individual elements, each character was hand drawn and coloured, while backgrounds were digitally illustrated. All elements were then brought together to be digitally enhanced, adding dimension and lighting to breathe life into the festive compositions.
‘The Reindeer that couldn’t fly’ along with ‘The Forgotten Snowman’ is available now for purchase at The Pinery gift shop, online and at The Alnwick Garden, and we’re sure it will be a festive treat for children everywhere!
If you have an initiative or idea you’d like to explore, contact us, we’d love to hear more.