i always give info freely - thats how other illustrators helped me! - good luck, martin.

And in such a concise video! Wow

thanks for your comment, renata, and glad it was useful for you - martin.

thanks for that, renata; and glad you found the posting - martin.

glad this was useful for you renata - martin.

mariana - thanks for your very appreciative comment, and i'm glad you found my video useful - martin.

really glad that you like my video, linda, and even more that you read "frankie" to your class - that's great! your ideas for future videos sound really interesting too - character development (that can have a double level to include the writer's development), keeping the illustrations exciting (that needs some thinking about) - and i'd have to see my brother again (he does the filming) - to get things started - thanks very much for your reply, linda - martin.

hi jared, and thanks for your reply - i'm glad my video proved helpful - don't hesitate to ask if questions crop up with your first book - martin.

+andypandywright Will do. Thank you!

It’s 2020. How’s it going?

Several publishers were interested, but they were hybrid publishers (pay for some of the cost up front). I wasn’t interested in going that route, because $4,000 and who knows if it’ll get you anywhere. Actually, I ended up going to art school. I have half a semester left before I graduate! Last year I landed a job in the art dept of a great company. It’s not my ideal job, to be honest, but it pays fairly well and is a great step toward where I’d like to be. My wife and I have an almost five year old daughter and we recently found out we’re expecting twin girls, so we’re currently house-shopping. It has been a very exciting and interesting four years! :)

@@matthewsjc1 This is such a heartwarming read. I'm so glad life is going well for you (it seems like.) God bless :)

hi H. Max - thanks for your comment on my video (and sorry about the non-HD format) - it's not so much people being clueless, it's more that a beginner really can't know this stuff (i've even found that it's kept back!) and i was just the same, i knew nothing, but picked everything up over the years - so now i'm glad to help anyone who needs it, and glad it helped you - cheers, martin.

@@andypandywright You are so kind to give so freely. This information is so useful for anyone wanting to write. And the way you explain things, even for young children starting out and interested in putting their own stories to paper, this is a useful resource. Your invaluable advice and knowledge is much needed, and appreciated. Thank You.

bernice - thanks for your very positive response to my video - and it's great that it's made you more confident to start - so do, it ends up really good fun bringing your book to life - all best wishes with it - martin

hi Elizabeth - thanks very much for your appreciative comment and i'm very glad you found it so useful - especially the fact of no special training, which I've found to have no great bearing on being able to illustrate. and I've been very fortunate in being paid for what i'm meant to do - Martin.

hi inkdraft - thanks for your complimentary comment and you can find information on contracts etc. on my other video - "18 things you might find useful after you've illustrated your children's book" - i should say that my brother got some contract stuff out of focus and the actual time for the video is only about 10 minutes or so - but otherwise it's quite informative! - cheers, martin.

cherry - thanks for your very positive comment, i was also surprised how much my video has been used and it's great that it has helped you with your first book - best of luck with it - martin.

hi suzu - thanks for your reply and i'm really glad that you like my video and find it so useful - keep safe during these crazy times - martin.

heather - glad that you found my video so useful - cheers, martin.

thanks for that very interesting reply, graham, and it's true, there's so much rigmarole clinging on to illustration which is totally unnecessary - i had no training and like yourself just wanted to see stories 'come alive', if they could, with my pictures, and i met two guys doing teacher training in english who had written stories for their classes to read, and they wanted me to do pictures for them - which i did - then later we submitted the stories with illustrations by me and waited for replies - happily successful replies came! - do move on with your story ideas and your illustrations - good luck - cheers, martin.

+andypandywright Cheers, I will do

terri - thanks for your very positive comment, and i'm glad that you could take so much from my video - i hope it will prove useful when you collaborate with your author - also i really liked your still life demo with the fruit - martin.

hi zoetic - it's great that you found my posting helpful and i can sympathise as the things you mention happened to me too - as you say, planning is a major factor but you don't need to rein in too much of your creativity now that you've seen the (not too intrusive) boundaries you'll be working under - best of wishes with your story - martin.

thanks for your very positive comment, crystal - martin.

glad you found my posting useful crystal - martin.

glad you found my posting useful crystal - martin.

thanks for your comment, adrian, and to your question - your sequence is exactly right if your pen lines are drawn with indian ink (which doesn't smudge when wet), but if you want to use other inks you have to make your pencil drawing, rub out a lot of the lines but leave enough to indicate the whole picture, add colour to this and finally draw your ink lines over the painted picture - a little trickier but gives a great result - cheers, martin.

micah - glad you liked my video - they're pretty smart animations of yours! - martin.

angela - well, thanks very much for your very positive response, the best info i got when i started was from straightforward people and it made me laugh about entertainment - when i started i found 7 books on illustration in the library and booked them all out - one was a dull looking hardback with 600 pages, no pictures, just a photo of the author (old geezer with glasses) and the other 6 were bright, colourful, flashy and short - well these 6 taught me nothing at all so i reluctantly opened the 600 pager and that book taught me everything i needed! - martin.

hi rebbenful - glad that you found my video useful - cheers, martin.

hi somnivers - glad you found my posting handy - cheers, martin.

muriel - that's very nice of you to say and i wish you the very best with your first book, i also had to make finished pictures out of my rough and i liked the rough so much that i copied it very slowly, making it just a bit smarter as i went - the hard bit was to make the new one look as easy and fluent as the rough. for your 15 page book you only need to include your title and perhaps a blank end page which makes it virtually 16 pages already (i'm guessing that it's to be a paperback) - let me know if you need to know any thing more that might crop up - martin.

suzi - thanks for your very positive comment. you can get publishers aware of your work by offering to meet with them at their office to show some of your work. this should be a medium amount of your work to show the scope of it so that they might keep it on file to show authors who don't have an illustrator. you might like to watch my second video on youtube "18 things you might find useful after illustrating your children's book" which deals a bit with this, and especially look into the 'authors and artists yearbook' for details of publishers etc. - martin.

hi j carpenter, and thanks for your reply - i have written a few of the books myself, which i really liked, and they did bring in some nice royalties (all mine) though i mostly illustrate for others. the advantages when you both write and illustrate are firstly that all the payment is yours, and secondly, equally important, that you have the total say on everything. i don't see any great reason to avoid rhymes as not that many books go into co-editions with foreign publishers, and children like rhyme - and often rhyme forms an indispensable part of the work. hope this helps - cheers, martin.

How did it go with your books?

deborah - i'm really glad that you found my video useful and wish you well with your own illustrations - martin.

hi kitten

hi kitten - i'm glad that you liked my video, the fact is that I had help for free from some people when I was starting out and so it seems only fair to also give what advice I can for free to you now! hope it helps you with all you do in the future - martin - ps. keep safe during this crazy time!

hi jackson - glad you liked my video - cheers, martin.

i'm very glad that you liked my posting, zara, especially the last comment - martin.

hi mark - hard to believe that video is 3 years old! and glad it's still being useful - hope all goes well with your books for your grandsons - all the best, martin.

ashley - thanks for your mighty appreciative comment and glad it was helpful - cheers, martin.

hi pamela - thanks for your complimentary reply and i'm nearly ready to put on another video about the business side of illustration, contracts etc. - I have to wait a while for my brother to set up his recording thing as before, but it might take a few weeks - martin.

+John Halvorsen It sounds like you're doing really well on your own! I'd like to know how you found such a big market for a self-pub!

well done so far, john - agents are listed in the 'writers and artists yearbook' -, though your own sales are good and you could continue this - martin.

really glad it's been useful, mattew1983tube - cheers, martin.

hi confidencebuilders - glad you liked my video and noted the time it took to work it all out - it came from listing everything i'd ever learnt about illustration from anybody or anywhere, and it came to 18 points (a few minor extra pointers have since been prompted by viewers questions!) - keep safe during these bonkers times - martin.

glad your dip in was a success - martin.

hi t & n maxim - thanks for your comment and glad you like my video - sounds like you're like me, want things explained simply with no waffling and unneccesary padding - and i'm more than happy to pass on everything i've learnt from all the books i've illustrated - cheers, martin.

daniela - i'm very glad that you found my images and style the kind that you like - thanks for your positive comment - martin.

glad this was useful for you viola and its not as complex as this sounds - try it! - martin.

hi nel - so glad you found my video useful, it is just the synthesis of all i learnt illustrating books over the years - i hope it helps you with your first book and please don't hesitate to write again if anything crops up that you don't know about when you do it - cheers, martin.

very glad that you got my posting as you attempt a new book - martin.

anna - that's a great reply and i know it'll help you do your stories, one of my authors found this info very handy in planning his books - yours, martin.

hi yingyangmeditation - i'm really glad that you found my video so useful and that now you're ready to start your book - my best wishes for your success martin.

@@andypandywright Its all good bub. It was very insightful. Just debating on how many pages to use. Thanks again!

@@yingyangmeditation9965 yingyangmeditation - good to hear from you again, if your story is normal length i'd say 32 pages, if a bit shorter go for 24 - cheers again, martin.

hi charity - thanks for your very positive comment on my video - martin.

L.P. very glad you found my video useful, all best wishes too - martin.

hi tatapepingCH - i'm very glad that you found my video useful especially as you're embarking on your first stage of your dream. i wish you all the very best with your writing and illustration which i hope becomes as inspiring as the wonderful alps - martin.

andypandywright Thank you, Martin!

hi farbwirbel - thanks very much for your comment and i'm glad you gained so much from my video - as regards main (and other) characters I first of all scrutinize the text looking for any clues (which can be quite obscure and implied) to consider when sketching the person, if the age is unclear I go for the likely age of the reader and the locations often give some valuable ideas (for example for costume when there is a farm setting) - the kind of activities of the characters are also useful guides for how they may look - regarding the style that will largely be determined by the likely preferences of the reader, the publisher and the general tenor of the story (for example colouring more subdued for darker, more dramatic stories etc), but in the end it will be my preferred style that wins out - and yours - you have to like what you're doing! I hope that, in the absence of a specific video, this will be helpful for you, farbwirbel - martin.

Thank you so very much for your answer! I will keep your advice in mind and try my best!

hi kelcy - i have to admit that when i started i also didn't realize any of the things in my video - i thought you just drew pictures and that was that, which explains how my first attempt was rejected! - but in time i got the hang of it by scrutinising a children's story, reading all available books etc - cheers, martin.

hi heartrealmvideo - thanks for your appreciative comment - and i'm hoping to get to work on the follow-up one soon - cheers, martin.

very glad you were pleased with my video, andrea, and definitely no need to feel overwhelmed - it's just drawing not the sistine chapel! - hope your story goes well - carry on! - martin.

glad that you found all the information useful MoominBetz - martin.

helena - thanks for your nice reply and i'm very glad that it looks like helping you illustrate your sister's stories - it is in fact a real advantage to work with somebody you know well (most of my books have been like this) best of luck with your combined project - martin

kanwaljeet - thanks for your very positive reply and i'm glad that like me you have progressed on your own steam without formal training - i hope you suceed as i did - martin x.

kerry - glad you did! - and glad that you found my video useful - martin.

barbra - i'm glad that my video is still useful for you after all that time, and hope it still helps with your future work - martin.

hi dramatic dolls - i'm glad you found my video helpful and you're right, it's the culmination of all the stuff I've learnt since my first (tentative) illustration - martin.

moonbeam - that's great that you found my video inspiring and i'm just like you, old school pen, paper and paints etc, so i can easily see what it's like for you in the somewhat impersonal digital world - so i'll say keep true to your natural style and i'm glad you gained some strength from my video - and keep going forward! - martin.

marc - that's great, and in fact that's what the video is for, giving people the info they need to make the best possible job of their illustrated stories - all best wishes with yours - martin.

glad you found my posting useful. BuffBlondie, cheers - martin.

thanks, shirley, for your very positive comment on my video and i'm glad you found it comprehensive - stay safe during these mad times, martin.

hi vera - thanks very much for your highly positive comment and i hope it helps you when you do your own illustrations over the new year - martin.

hi hazel - that's great that you found my video so helpful, i'm always glad that someone can use it and i wish you wonderful times with your own artwork - martin xx

eric - that's great and good to know that my video helped you to do your two books - hope all goes well with your future work - keep safe during this awful virus - cheers, martin.

hi smillie - glad you found my video useful, and if anything crops up when you illustrate your first book let me know - and all best wishes with it - cheers, martin.

chris - glad my posting was new and helpful - martin.

hi steven - glad you found my posting useful and the very best of luck in any illustration work you do - also, keep safe during these crazy times - cheers, martin.

I also have a graphics background and am attempting a dream to write and illustrate a childrens book. It seams the natural thing to do with graphic background and my soon to be husband is a printer! Thank you both!

@@hellodenise9612 hi d m - thanks for your reply and it seems to me absolutely tailor-made for your plan to write and illustrate your own story, and with a future husband as a printer it's almost the dream scenario - no-one to please but yourselves! - the very best of luck with it - keep safe during these crazy times - cheers, martin.

@@hellodenise9612 hi d m - thanks for your reply, and it sounds like the perfect start to your book as you are both writer and illustrator and your future husband is a printer - no-one else to please, the whole project solely yours - it's the dream scenario - the very best of luck with it - keep safe during these crazy times - cheers, martin.

@@andypandywright Thank you! I am going to need some help I'm sure!

hi elyse - glad you liked my video and i hope it proves useful for you - keep safe in these mad times - martin.

oriole - well, thanks for such a positive and appreciative comment - i'm hugely glad that you got so much from my video - martin.

hi peterkratoska - thanks for your positive reply and i hope my video has given you some useful facts when you set about illustrating your friend's book - if you need any more pointers just write them here and i'll answer next time i'm on - cheers, martin.

@@andypandywright Thank you Andy, I especially like the idea of having a potentially scary element coming in on a left side of a page, as this little story book has some of this. ANd I will definitely use that. Also a kind of cliff hanger, build up on the page before. The other thing is, and you touched upon it is the target age that it is aimed at. Say the book might be more suitable as a landscape for smaller children. Currently this is made for a 3 yr old toddler. not sure if you touched on the typeface and size (in this case the toddler would not be reading it) but still I want it clean and easy to read - say no unusual fonts. If you have any recommendations on that. Finally, this is really my own time management and planning issue. So I do like to draw and sketch but I might end up focusing way too much on the detail of one page (say the city where this child is from) but this is at the expense of delaying the rest of it. Its definitely taking longer than I expected. I did make up a little quick storyboard at the beginning and I realized I need to make the characters a little more cartoony and not so detailed as it would take me forever otherwise. Quite frankly the target audience is not so fussy. How many scenes on a page? Sometimes a couple of things happen in a story in one scene. I'm trying to keep it simple as well. How much time would one expect to spend on making say a 16 or 24 page book? Thanks in advance.

@@peterkratoska4524 hi peterkratoska - i'd go for a simple font, avoiding the 'glasses' g, and having the story set in the child's town is a great idea, even using bus station, city square, hospital etc, as for scenes on one page any number's ok as long as the separation's clear - for the rough of the book i'd say a week at most (can be in colour or not), and when you do the actual book it shouldn't take much longer because you'll often find it's simply better to just tidy up the rough pages - have fun with it! - cheers, martin.

hi churchview wishart - that's a great story you've given me and it took you about the same time as me to learn all the things in my video, but we both got there in the end, and i bet your book for your granddaughter and her bike ride was well worth your time and effort and i'm sure much appreciated by her and her family - many thanks for your inspiring letter - martin.

@@andypandywrightmy goodness Martin…you are such a generous consultant to all us ‘would be’ children’s book illustrators! Since l last wrote to you ( 2yrs ago) l have written 3 more little books following your advice. They have been for my young grand daughters but particularly geared for our young autistic grandson. I do all my pictures with the story line, then scan them into my computer then upload them to Vistaprint . It is a very expensive way of getting my little books published but they have given the children such pleasure as the stories always include themselves! I am now about to venture on my 5th book for a young disabled friend of my grandson…..just look what you have started!! ….very many thanks for all your excellent advice and encouragement Martin.

@@bobwishart8780 hi bob - thanks for your comment and it's just great that you've found my video so useful and gone on to write and illustrate 4 books, soon to be 5, all geared personally for your granddaughters and grandson, and, soon, your grandson's friend - it's a splendid idea to involve them all with their own 'selves' in each story and who cares about the cost, it's worth a lot more than money to them and to yourself, and, after all, what do we spend most of our money on - pretty irrelevant but unfortunately necessary stuff - the best of luck with book 5 and any future books - all worth it! - cheers, martin.

@@andypandywright lm Bob’s wife …Ruth… he’s the IT guru in our house!… thanks for your encouraging words Martin … lm amazed at your selfless encouragement of others less talented than yourself… l wish you the very best!

hi christine - thanks for your very appreciative comment - keep yourself safe during this mad virus - cheers, martin.

flavya - i'm very glad you found my video useful and that you found the points i made easy to understand - martin.

hi Darren - glad you found my video useful and all best wishes on your first illustrated book - keep safe in these crazy times - cheers, martin.

And you! Thanks Martin.

hi janis - i'm glad you found my video useful, even though some details were a shade too late for you to batch the colours! - the best of luck with your and your husband's stories and i'm sure your grandchildren will be enrapt - best wishes, martin.

hi gina-maria - thanks for your reply and i'm glad you found my video so useful - martin

thanks for your positive comment, lili, and glad you like my pictures - martin.

escaleric - glad that you benefited from my video and found out some useful new stuff from it - martin.

joyce - i'm so glad you found my video useful and inspiring - martin.

hi jedi - that's great, and doing your own books will mean you can tailor them to suit your students individual needs, a real advantage for them and much more fun for you both - all the very best with your projected stories - martin.

hi don - thanks for your honest and appreciative comment - and it's a good point that we don't have to admire a style to learn what we want from it - i learnt just about everything from a collection of random books at the time, and i have to also admit to being totally unable to illustrate with a computer program, with me it's all pencil, pen, brush - in fact whatever comes to hand - i've often wanted to illustrate with coloured pencils but nobody asked for it. i think your experience as a police officer will give you great insight into people's lives and relationships which will find it's way into your work - best of luck with your new project - cheers, martin.

hi pedcaju atelie - thanks for your comment and i really tried to condense all the info needed into this short video, - some can be really rambling! - cheers, martin.

hi carol - i''m glad that you found my video useful in all these ways, thanks for your positive comment - martin.

hi - thanks for your reply and its great that you found my video so helpful and gave you things to try out - i had a look at your website and really like the top illustration which is very suitable for children's story style - cheers, martin.

artemensia - thanks for your positive reply, and greetings from one illustrator to another - martin

crispy - very glad you were pleasantly surprised by my video - i hope it proves mighty useful to you - martin.

really glad that you like my stuff, tita, and thanks for your positive comment - martin.

:)

hi leonardo - thanks for your comment and i'm glad you found my video useful - (great name, by the way!) - cheers, martin.

hi boxing guy - thanks for your highly complimentary comment - (I need to stay on the right side of a boxing expert!) - martin.

hi farmer fox - glad you found my video useful and hope it fully helps with your projects - cheers, martin.

thanks for your comment, kls.marcom , and your very positive reaction to my posting- martin.

hi strawberry - glad you liked it - keep safe during the mad virus time - martin.

hi janani and thanks for your positive comment (including my last point!) - martin.

rachel - i'm very glad you found my video useful - and i hope it helps you with your first book. i must say that i thought my voice on the video sounded a bit daft but if you were okay with it, then that's fine - martin.

hi robyn - very glad that my video has been of some help to you in doing your first book - good luck with it - martin.

marcia - thanks for your positive reply and please do go ahead with your first book now, you have all the advantages of being both author and illustrator (nobody but yourself to please) - you can find out about contracts etc. with my other video "18 things you might find useful after you've illustrated your children's book" - i should mention that my brother made that video and some of it is a bit out of focus but the facts are still there - if you need further help write again - martin.

laurie - thanks for your appreciative comment - martin.

helen - that's great that my video has prompted you to have a go - the very best with your first one - martin.

hi linda - thanks for your comment, and it reminded me of my lady friend who said she first liked hearing my voice before we met - I told her when she gets her contact lenses it's all over! i'm sure you'll be fine without needing any luck - martin.