An honour to be hosting this guest post

And get some tips for creating illustrated characters of your own

One of the most interesting things about the process of making this book is how long it took me to choose what animal Sir Bragalot was, or even if he was an animal at all.

Back in 2014 when I wrote my first scrappy draft of Sir Bragalot I thought of him as a small dog, a Jack Russell, you know the ones who always seem to be running about, shouting their importance. Sir Bragalot, right?

Later, when I came back to the story, I wasn’t sure if the dog idea was the right one. Although I was almost too tempted to make the queen into a pink poodle! No! dogs have been done, and brilliantly by other illustrators, and I didn’t trust my dog drawing skills to quite get Bragalot’s pompous, snooty, incredulous character across.

I went to the drawing board with a handful of adjectives. I tried him as a bat, a bug, a cat, a frog.

I went really far down the squirrel tack before realising- he was a rabbit, A square nosed, tiny, fluffy bunny with expressive whiskers and tiny boots.

I think I struggled to see the world of Sir Bragalot because I wrote and edited the text in isolation of visuals. I didn’t have a character in mind, pinned to my notice board to refer to.

I think I’m unique in that way for an illustrator. I do most of my story ideas straight in my writing notebook. No sketches, no dummy book, just words. I’ve had Illustrator friends be equally aghast at this as when they find out I still use a mouse to colour with digitally! I do love surprising people. Sir Bragalot was based on a person I knew and all I knew was he had to be the smallest character in the kingdom, who often would climb onto things to get a height advantage, he was loud and expressive, easily upset and would say these ridiculously obvious brags. The character design needed to say, ‘Look at me!’ and make the reader ask, ‘what IS he doing?’

When I finally decided on the rabbit I went back and drew him in a pose I’d used for Dog Bragalot, back in the day.

Then all the other characters came very quickly, Lion king, leopard queen, tough animal knights and squealy pig squire.

I went backwards and forwards wondering if Sir Bragalot would have a comically short pony or a giant horse as his mode of transport. Of course, Bragalot wouldn’t accept anything other than the biggest horse around. What was I thinking?

Drawing Characters

Here are a few tips to try and make them distinct

Concentrate on silhouette – can you spot your character in the distance just by their shape?

Colours for additional characters are very important. Keep them in the same colour palette of the background to stop them from pulling attention.

It’s a good idea to see your characters all together, so you know how they fit scale wise.

Let your characters personality choose their shape or even species. A shy elephant can still be a knight!

If you have a particularly small main character, try using height, placement and even colour to keep them the focus for the reader. (The yellow to Sir Bragalot’s tabard is the brightest colour you can get in CYMK)