Finn Jones Was Here

A peek behind the scenes

Hello! I illustrated a book that published last week, hooray! The book is called Finn Jones Was Here and written by Simon James Green and published by Scholastic UK. It’s always a really special day, publication day. And this book launch was extra special, as the book was chosen to be May’s indie children’s book of the month! So I thought it might be fun to talk a little about the process that went into creating this fiction book.

I have an agent, and it’s ALWAYS super exciting to get that ‘potential new project’ email. But to get an email about a potential new project with a brilliant publisher like Scholastic, and an incredible author like Simon James Green, I definitely did a little happy dance. I trusted my agent with the negotiations while I waited patiently(ish) for the contract signing part so I knew it was real and I wasn’t dreaming. Then the fun bit starts. I was introduced to the designer, Sarah Baldwin, who was fantastic to work with. It was one of my first experiences working as an illustrator directly with an AD and I really loved the collaborative nature of this part of the process. Sarah had three awesome cover concepts planned out and together we worked up visuals to be taken to the cover meetings with the sales team.

As we had options that would show the main character, Eric, I needed to design how he would look. At this stage I like to make sure I have asked the publisher what they saw in my portfolio that drew them to my work. And they sent over a selection of portfolio pieces that stood out for them. This is so helpful, especially if you’re still new and working out where you fit in the market. Here are the reference pieces they chose:

With this in mind, I worked up three routes based on Sarah’s brief.

The team decided on option 2, which Sarah and I were very happy with as it was our favourite. We all loved Eric on the sofa as well though so decided that image would appear in the book and also on the back cover. This idea was worked up and coloured. I sent the illustrations to Sarah who did the typography, and here is the final result:

I really love this cover, the concept is so clever and it breaks your heart before even reading what the story is about.

After finalising the cover, I worked up the other two main characters in the story: Finn, Eric’s best friend, and Cooper, who helps Eric with his quest. I knew the characters well, having read the manuscript, and had a pretty clear idea how I imagined them. There’s always a little bit of uncertainty for me at these stages, as I’m worried I might realise everyone else was imagining something totally different, and I have to start again from an unknown beginning. Luckily our visions seemed to be aligned, always a reassuring sign! Don’t tell anyone, but I’m terrified of sketchbooks, they’re far too pretty. Give me a piece of A3 paper and a plastic wallet and I’m so happy. Here are some of the original sketches of what became our three main characters:

And this is the final line up:

By now, I had been sent the list of illustrations required for the book and could start roughing them out, aah exciting! The book is full of action, and really is an emotional rollercoaster, so it was really fun to make sure my illustrations amplified the sadness as well as the humour. I often find it helpful to show my illustrations to other people and ask them how they think the character is feeling. It should be really clear what emotion is character is feeling and what part they play in the story that is being told. Making sure you clearly bring the narrative to life (a ‘clear read’) is the first job, and then anything else you can bring, which might not be prescribed by the text, is an extra bonus. This usually ends up being a cheeky cat or two… For this project I was lucky enough to have the time to create really neat roughs that were close to how I wanted the final illustrations to look. This made the final shading stage so so soooo much easier, and I was constantly thanking old me for doing such detailed roughs. Here are two examples of the roughs and then the final illustrations:

I have chosen these illustrations to show you, because I was recently interviewed by Scholastic and in the interview I was asked which illustration was my favourite to draw. I talk about these two illustrations. I also talk about a few other things, including how I became an illustrator, my favourite illustrators, and my top tips for aspiring illustrators.

You can read that interview here:

My top tip for colouring the final spreads is to organise the spreads into an order you plan to do them in, starting with the hardest or most involved. It’s exhausting working on one project for so long, especially if the deadline is quite tight, and if you’re anything like me, your energy will start to decrease as the end nears. If you only have a couple of spot illos to do rather than the big climactic end of book crowd scenes, you will really thank yourself. Sarah Horne gave me this tip and I really think it is the best! I hope this little peep behind the curtain has been interesting. I always love hearing about the parts fo the process you don’t normally get to see. Did you know you can subscribe to my substack so these newsletters appear magically in your inbox?

My fellow Illoguild member, Adam Ming, also had a book birthday last week! Here is more info about his book:

Does a Monkey Get Grumpy?