Sprinkletopia
In a world made of sprinkles and more, celebrations await with surprises galore!
From candy rain to kite-flying flamingos, discover the wonders of Sprinkletopia in this sweet dreamland adventure.
Author: Michelle Lipton
Book designer: Arlene Soto
Book designer: Arlene Soto
Sprinkletopia is a book where I could let my imagination run free. Michelle loved to use bright colours and that is just right up my alley.
What I loved most about designing Sprinkletopia was all the fun characters that are in the book. From a cheetah with rainbow spots to a fat gator without teeth. The story Michelle wrote let my imagination run wild.
Coming up with the design of the trees and bushes was a bit of a search. Michelle wanted everything to look like it was made of candy, but not with cupcakes and donuts decorating the scene. So I came up with trees made of cotton candy and bushes made of cream with sprinkes.
Process
Storyboard
We started the book by creating a storyboard. These are very simples sketches created on a big canvas with all the pages. This way we can see the flow of the book. In this stage I think about how you will read the page and where the text should roughly go.
There are scribbles and notes on the page to explain the sometimes "bad" drawings. In this stage I don't think about the details. But only on the big picture for the page
Sketches
The next step is to redraw the rough sketches but this time with all the details. Especially for the character and the main elements on the page. In this phase I didn't draw the background completely. To make sure the focus was on the main elements.
Rough coloured storyboard
The rough coloured storyboard is a very important step in creating a book. In this phase I'm searching for good colour combinations. The reason I do this in the storyboard is because this way I can see if all the colours match and how the flow from the book is. In the case of Sprinkletopia Michelle requested if we could go from sunrise to sunrise, daylight, sunset and finally night.
Flat colours & Final rendering
When all of the above stages are done there's only one thing left and that is colouring everyting for the final illustration. This phase of "flat colours" is where the final details of the background came to life. Because especially with Sprinkletopia it's all in the details. I added sprinkles on every page.
After finishing the flat colours I can finally start on my favorite part. The final rendering, which is all about lights, shadows and magic. In this phase an illustration comes to life!
