Process: Phil Who Fell by Brandon Fall

The Start of the Journey:
Writer Rex Wilder approached us to set colorful illustrations to his playful children’s book. The story is set in ryhme and follows a boy named Phil who likes to fall. It’s not that Phil can’t help from falling, he just likes it, much to his parents dismay. In the end, a philosopher realizes the freeing feeling falling has and becomes a follower of Phil. Phil ends up with many other “fall”owers.

Approach:
After a few meetings to determine what Rex was looking for in the illustration style, character sketches were underway. The flow of the book definitely has a playful feeling; playful illustrations would naturally follow.

Early sketches for the character Phil




Concept:
We mutually decided that Phil should be just about the only normal looking one. The other characters Phil would meet along the way would look more abnormal, which would contrast with Phil. I also wanted to have the illustrations packed with other background information, events going on in the background that might tell their own individual story that you, as a reader, might not catch on the first read through. This is where I really had a lot of fun!

Sketches for the character Phil



Individual scans pieced together in Photoshop



Finished double page spread painted in Photoshop


More Than Meets the Eye:
The copy at the start of the book was very short and simple, for example one page reads, “Phil, who fell in football.” More than just illustrating Phil falling while playing football, I wanted to create a whole story within this spread...people yelling on the sidelines, parents getting in arguments, and a teammate surprised with Phil falling before making it to the inzone.

Fully illustrated page and close up background detail





Fully illustrated page and close up background detail





Technique:
The illustrations were drawn on a 18” x 24” sketch tablet. Each sketch was scanned at a high resolution in 3 to 4 pieces and lined up together in Photoshop. The advantage of painting in Photoshop was that it would allow for easy color changes, easy layout changes, or even completely eliminating a character if needed. The skin tones, where I usually started each illustration, were blocked in as a solid color and placed on their own layer. The Photoshop round brush was set with a hard edge at 50% opacity–this created the paint stroke look, as 50% opacity allowed the previous paint strokes to come through. A slightly lighter color was then used for high-lights. As the color was painted, other colors were sampled and blended in. The process was repeated with both lighter and darker colors. It’s just like painting!

Skin tones were added first as a solid color



Highlights and shadows were then added




The Outcome:
Along the way, Rex was shown the sketches and finished illustrations as they were created. He was pleased with the initial direction, so he gave us complete creative freedom for the rest of the illustrations in the book. The result was a book with which we were both happy about.