Busy zoos, magical hot air balloons and the deep, blue sea! - A catch up with Izzy Bean!

Where on Earth is Izzy Bean?

I'm still here! This last few months I have been so busy, I haven't had time to update my blog! I've been scribbling, doodling, drawing, colouring, editing and designing... and it's been GREAT! 

Would you like to see what I have been up to?

INDIVIDUALISED BABY BOOKS by Marc Gawley

I had a lot of fun illustrating these personalised hard-back books for the Individualized baby books company. 

Each book features your child's name, both on the cover and throughout the story - creating not just a fun bedtime book but also a keepsake for years to come!

These books make your child the star of the story! 

Here are my beautiful nephews enjoying theirs - they loved to see their names in print!

Marc Gawley has done an excellent job in writing this lively, interactive book.

Your child will see his or her name in the story interacting with the zoo animals on four of the pages, plus twice in pictures with the mother, though the way the book is illustrated the face is obscured, so your child can recognize themselves regardless of skin/hair color etc. 

This book has bright colors and lots of opportunities for interaction, and has been especially written with the help of a language expert. 
Learning activities incorporated into the book include: 
* Animal identification and naming - can you see a monkey? 
* Mimicking of animal sounds - what noise does an owl make? 
* Counting - how many lions can you see? 
* Letting your child 'lead' the reading - what can you see on this page? 

A portion of the profits from this book are donated to the Honeypot Children's Charity. Since 1996 Honeypot has been working to enhance the lives of vulnerable children and young carers aged 5-12 years by providing respite breaks and on-going outreach support.

You can buy one of these books now with Amazon

Buy now!

And you can like the official page on Facebook too;

Facebook!

THE ADVENTURES OF ALEX by Roughy Toys

You may remember, but some time ago I shared a project I was working on for the Roughy Toys company. Well it's not only finished and launched, but it's a huge success! Check it out!

The Adventures of Alex is a story about two friends, Alex & Alex, who travel in a magical balloon around the world to help others and bring fun to children. 

The book is available in Kindle, as a free PDF through their website and as a great hardback too!

Buy the book now!

When you buy an Alex toy, one is donated to a child in need somewhere in the world. This amazing concept of using fun to help others makes these toys more meaningful.

Head on over to their website now to find out more, and watch a cool video starring Alex and Alex!

Visit the Roughy Toys website!

And don't forget to give them a like on Facebook too - you can see Alex having fun with children all over the world, and send in pictures of your own too!

Visit the Roughy Toys website!

LITTLE RED OVERALLS by Evergreen Creations LLC

I've been illustrating for Aaron at Evergreen Creations for some time now, their products in one word are; FANTASTIC!

The newest addition to their FairyTale Trail series is the cute and gutsy LITTLE RED OVERALLS - a unique twist on the traditional story.

I'm not giving anything away... you'll have to go and have a read for yourself!

The FairyTale Trail website

You can see all the other great stories too, including;

Jack and the Cornstalk

Ciderella and the Glass Sipper

Beauty and the Bees

...and if you keep your eye out, you may also see a new book appearing sometime soon! 

(I told you I'd been busy!)

"Evergreen Creations, with support from a network of family farmers and early childhood educators, publishes The Fairy Tale Trail, a series of timeless fairy tales adapted to the agriculture industry to help teach children about farming in a fun (and healthy!) manner.  Each story along the Fairy Tale Trail can be presented as a magical and educational walk-through reading experience at the farm.  The tales are ideal for incorporating into corn mazes, pick-your-own fields, and other kid-friendly areas on the farm, and can easily be integrated into field trip programs that meet local educational requirements.  They are also fun for parents and teachers to share with their children." 

You can buy Little Red Overalls, and the other stories from The FairyTale Trail right here;

Amazon Kindle

The FairyTale Trail for iBookstore

THE SELFISH SHELLFISH by Grandma Paintpot

I love illustrating books, but I love it all that bit more when the characters are loveable too - and that's exactly what Grandma Paintpot has done with her debut book - The Selfish Shellfish. Even the name has a ring to it!

For the first book in a series, this is a sure-fire winner! It tells the story of a group of sea creatures battling the tide in Falmouth, Cornwall.

You can find out more about this book by visiting the blog, or Facebook - and there are even some colouring sheets for the little ones hiding there!

Grandma Paintpot's blog

Grandma Paintpot on Facebook

And you can purchase the book on Amazon - a small percentage of the sales will be donated to the Special Olympics Cornwall.

Buy on Amazon

I'm currently working on Book 2 of the series, and I can tell you now that it's already lined up to be as good as the first! You haven't heard the last of Crusty and his friends...

But wait, there's more

I am currently working on some great books which I'll share with you all when the time comes, but for now, I'll leave you with a few more peeks at what has been keeping me busy.

Thanks for reading!

If you have a book, or any other project and you'd like me to illustrate it for you

 - you can email me at;

 izzybean@izzybean.co.uk 

or visit my website to see more illustrations!

www.izzybean.co.uk

How to draw for kids - a guide by a children's illustrator!

I’ve been illustrating children’s books for years now. I’ve done it all; baby books, rhyming books, counting books, books about grief, books about monsters, books about eating healthy and books about sustainable living, books about having fun and everything in-between.  

So what’s the secret?

Well, drawing for children isn’t as easy as it sounds. Children are the fussiest of readers, any parent will know how hard it is to keep a child interested in one thing for more than a second. They think differently, have different priorities, they’re still learning and they look at the world in their own unique way.

So I’ve got together a little list of tips and tricks for anyone drawing for children - weather that is for your own children for fun, or professionally as an illustrator. 

CHILDREN ARE NOT STUPID

First and foremost, don’t ever think that because children are young, that you can get away with cheating them. No chance! They gobble up information and process it faster than you can turn a page, and if you’ve drawn four pigs but the text only said three - busted! Perhaps you think they won’t notice your inconsistencies, but as everybody knows, children will ask all manner of questions and are very persistant. If the story says the main character wore a red coat - you better make sure that coat is always red. If you drew a tiny egg hidden amongst the clutter of a well detailed kitchen and forgot to draw it on the last page, parents will hear, ‘Daddy, where did the egg go?’ 

CHILDREN LOVE POOP!

And slime, and splats, and gunk, and smears, and any other disgusting, and dirty manner of filth. Forget keeping that bedroom looking spick and span to set a good example, that’s just no fun! Kids love mess. Picking noses, smelly socks, you name it - kids love it.

RED AND YELLOW AND PINK AND BLUE…

This one’s a given, but well worth mentioning as it’s one of the most important. Kids illustrations are almost always bright, bold and beautiful. Things which are quite neutral colours in real life, can be jazzed up for kids. A donkey can be light blue, a fish could be a strong orange... A good tip is to use a colour wheel to see what colours go best together, and utilise them in your art. Use your imagination too! A bright red jumper might be good, but how about a red and yellow striped jumper, with a green bow tie? If you page looks like the rainbow exploded, you’re probably on the right track, but there are ways to use eye-popping colour without using every colour known to man too - play around and see what works. I often employ a ‘colour theme’ per page. So if I’m drawing a little girl’s room, I’ll use lots of different shades of purples and pinks.

PEEK-A-BOO!

A lot of children’s books, especially rhyming books, rely on repetition to capture their audience.

This is fine, but there are other ways you can sneak in visual surprises for the little ones to keep them on their toes. They’ll be grateful!

Try and use changes in angles when illustrating, a page looking down on your main character, or from behind shake things up a bit and provide a much better response when read in sequence. If the story involves a ‘peek-a-boo’ or ‘hello!’ then you might want to try some extreme close ups to make the kids laugh. Next time you’re watching a cartoon on the TV, count the number of camera changes and angles from which they tell the story, and use some of the ideas in your illustrations! 

HOW MANY RABBITS CAN YOU SEE?

This is an all-time favourite and a way of making the book last all that longer. Finding objects or counting doesn’t have to be written in the text, you can add this bit yourself without the author! Try adding some mini-games for your readers to entertain themselves with. It will be the difference between a child putting your book down after it’s been read to them, or not letting their parent turn the page until they’ve found all the flowers. Another little trick is to sneak a friendly face onto every page (without stealing the main character’s limelight!) so your child can look forward to finding him when they turn over.

THINK LIKE A 5 YEAR OLD

Or at least try to think about what your target audience likes. Countless times I’ve seen children’s books that were apparently made for adults. A 6 year old has no care about their clothes matching; princess dresses and trainers. Shorts and wellington boots. They have unbrushed hair, stained shirts, and mud on their face. Children like to see themselves in the book, so try to relate to what is most important to them, and make that important to your drawn character. 

NEVER TRUELY SCARE THE CHILD

They might like to be playfully scared, or surprised so they squeal in fright, but never, ever draw something too scary. You’ll lose the reader instantly! So forget realistic blood, or too much gore. Don’t make your character appear dead or ripped apart horrifically. You may think this is a little obvious, but you’d be surprised how many illustrators draw fangs dripping with blood, or an eyeball falling from the bloody socket of a dinosaur’s victim. They’re just kids! Keep it safe.

And finally…

HAVE FUN!

Be inventive, enjoy your work, have fun and laugh a little. It will show through in your work. Good luck!

If you're looking for a professional illustrator for your book, you can check out my site, at www.izzybean.co.uk for my portfolio of work, or email me at;

izzybean@izzybean.co.uk

Thanks for reading!

Lion cubs and poppies - plus a FREE Santa Xmas card!

With the run up to Xmas, things have been hectic. I'm happily working away on some fantastic projects - so I thought I'd share a few illustrations with you to give you a look at what I've been doing!

I recently finished a series of illustrations for a book written by Marc Gawley

The book is a bright, fun, rhyming book for young children that will be available to personalise in a variety of names!

This illustration above was created as a sample for a new book - 

It was created in Adobe Photoshop, and the hair was created using custom brushes!

And this cute little girl is the newest addition to Evergreen Creation's Fairy Tale Trail series - you'll be seeing more of her soon!

And finally, I've created a colourful Santa gift card that you can use absolutely free!

Simply print out these 2 pictures below, at the same size, glue them together so the pictures face outwards, fold them in half and there you go! Your very own Santa card that you know nobody else will have this Xmas.

The pictures are best printed onto photo paper, and no bigger than 100%

Have a great Xmas and New Year!

If you like my illustrations, and would like a quote for a project of your own, you can visit my website at;

www.izzybean.co.uk

Or email me at;

izzybean@izzybean.co.uk

Izzy Bean's guide to self publishing your ebook - a breakdown!

I know it's been a while since I lasted made a blog post. I'm busy illustrating for some really great projects that I'll share with you all soon! In the meantime, I thought it might be handy to write a little bit about ebook publishing.

I know there's a lot to get your head around if you're new to ebooks and what everything means. In the last few years I'd say 80% of the books I illustrate are ebook only. We'll not get into why this is right now, but safe to say if you're thinking about writing or have written a book - you've thought about ebooks.

It's not as complicated as it first looks. And if you have a bit of know-how, you can do it on a very tight budget too. So what options do you have?

Well, you've written your script, you've commissioned an illustrator to provide some amazing illustrations ( Or are you looking for one? ) and you're ready to go! But where on earth do you start? Who is the cheapest? Who offers the most revenue from sales? Who takes the biggest cut? 

There are some big names out there in the self publishing world, and I've worked with most of them. Let's break down and compare the market leaders to see exactly what your options are.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

One of the big-hitters, Amazon offer their very own publishing platform called Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, or KDP for short.

Of course, the first thing to remember is Amazon have the power of the KINDLE - their own ebook reader which is highly popular and dominates the market. Publishing with Amazon will mean all those Kindle readers have access to your book - and that's a lot of people... 

- Amazon's ebook format is AZW, or .mobi - you'll have to convert your book into this format or pay someone else to do it. If you're looking to do this yourself, checkout Calibre or Mobi-pocket Creator

- Amazon offer a 70% royalty rate, with some rules which are listed on their website.

- The Kindle App is available on almost all devices, phones, PCs, Macs and Android. Even if your fans don't have a Kindle, they can still read Kindle books on other devices too.

- Amazon offers KDP select; a feature that, if eligible, can give you access to promotional tools whilst making your book part of the Kindle Owner lending library. In short, an annual fund will mean you get some of that money, but people can view your book for free for a limited time - getting you more reviews and fans. This also means you'll be exclusive to Kindle and so can't upload your book anywhere else.

- It's worth noting too, that some of the Kindles don't have full colour screens - so if you have beautiful illustrations make sure they look good in greyscale too!

iBooks author

ibooks author, if you didn't already guess is Apple's publishing software.

Books from the iBookstore are only readable on Apple's devices such as the iPad, iPhone, etc. However considering how many people own some sort of Apple device, this isn't a low number. 

- The ibooks author software is free to download and use, and comes with pre-made templates to make it easier to create your ebook (you can also use templates made by 3rd parties...)

- ibooks author offers the opportunity to do more with your ebook, such as make it interactive or add a soundtrack

- 70% royalty rate the same as Amazon

- Retain 100% of the rights to your ebook, but you have to 'register' and fill out an application which can take some time

Smashwords

Smashwords is an ebook distributor that lets you distribute your books to the largest ebook retailers.

- Smashwords is fast, free and easy. They take small royalties (you earn 85% of the net profit) but don't charge you for their service unless you sign up for their 'premium' service

- You can use their 'meat grinder' tool to do all the hard work for you, simply upload your word file and get your ebook in many different formats!

- You can sell on Smashwords itself as well as exporting to other sites, and Smashwords will take care of the distribution for you

Barnes & Noble Pub-it

Pub-it is Barnes & Noble's publishing service. Barnes and Noble are the creators of the Nook - a popular ebook reader. 

- Pub It offers a free conversion tool

- Work on a % without any upfront fees and get paid monthly rather than the 60 days Smashwords offer

- Your book will not only be available on the Nook, but also on the Barnes & Noble website - a very popular and well respected bookstore

Lulu

Lulu is a web-based self publishing service, 

which also boasts an online community including forums. 

Lulu, like other companies I've mentioned above, offer to publish and distribute your book 

for no charge - instead taking a percentage of royalties.

- Lulu has a store which gives you the option to order paperback printed copies of your book as well as the ebook version, although the high price of doing this to order means you likely won't sell many

- You will get 80% of the net profit and get paid monthly through Paypal

- Keep the copyright to all your work

- You can get a Lulu ISBN number for free - some of the above companies require you to buy this (ibooks)

- Can be listed on Amazon, although it does take some time for this to be processed

Createspace

Createspace, created by Amazon, is very similar to Lulu - but seemingly a lot cheaper. Not only do they offer book service but also CDs and DVDs too. They have both free and paid services. 

- Free to create and distribute your ebook, you only pay a % when you start seeing sales

- Can create paperback printed copies at a lower price than Lulu.com - you can proofs sent at a low price too

- Create Kindle ebooks

- Fast and easy to work with, but limited on choices of covers and spine art. You'd probably be best spending the money you've saved using Createspace in hiring a decent artist or designer to make your book stand out.

So, which one fits your requirements?

Only you can make that choice, but I hope this little guide helped somewhat to breaking down each companies' pros and cons in an easy to understand way.

There are, of course, other options out there. However I've listed the most popular and well known companies. 

Please leave a comment, share, like or follow me if you like what you've read!

You can visit my website, at www.izzybean.co.uk

Or my Facebook page! www.facebook.com/izzybeanart

EVERGREEN CREATIONS BOOKS; Thankyou to family farmers everywhere!

I've been illustrating for Aaron Burakoff for a while now, and every time he sends me a new script, I can't wait to see what fun illustrations I'll get to draw this time!

Aaron sent me some of the printed books (Written by Aaron Burakoff, illustrated by Izzy Bean) for the Fairy Tale Trail recently, and I just couldn't wait to show you all! Don't they look great?

The Fairy Tale Trail is a series of timeless fairy tales you know and love adapted to the agri-tourism industry to help teach children about farming in a fun way!

Each story features a different food and takes you on a magical journey to help understand where this food comes from and how it's made. 

There's important life lessons for kids, but also supports farmers and similar family-friendly venues.

The books are 10" by 10" - making them easy to read, hold and look at. They feel great, and the bright, bold colours are superb for getting the message across!

The books are available to buy over at the official Fairy Tale Trail website right here;

http://www.thefairytaletrail.com

Or you can get them as ebooks too! 

See the books on Amazon

See the books on the iBookstore

See the books for Nook (Barnes and Noble)

And that's not all! The Fairy Tale Trail website features lots of activities for kids too, including colouring in sheets, word searches and more! Check it out here.

What's great about these stories is they can be applied to activities such as mazes and walk-throughs too - here's a few shots of the spreads up in the Corn Mazes, have you been yet?

Lacombe Corn maze sign

The Fairy Tale Trail is packed full of fun with a really important message about healthy eating, where our food comes from and more - be sure to follow their website for updates and more stories!

http://www.evergreencreationsllc.com

Thanks for reading, I can't wait for the next instalment, can you?