Have you ever wondered how your favorite books came to be? For the Fuddlebrook Science Series that process took a little over three years (for the 26 books).
Each book started with a science concept based off of science standards. In The Plant Warrior, the concept was plants, habitats, and ecology. After writing a fun, creative story around the concept, the copy was sent to multiple editors (in our case, seven). With the editors’ various skills and expertise, they could point out things that just didn’t make sense scientifically, or how a child would react to certain story elements. After reviewing their suggestions and fixing the issues, the stories were sent out again, for countless re-edits, until the story was deemed “perfect.”
Fuddlebrook Blacklines
Next came illustration, and figuring out a creative way to tell the story visually to match the text. The idea would start with a concept drawing with pencil. The pencil line then would become inked black lines, which were then scanned into the computer. Once they were digital, hundreds of layers were added for color, shading, and textures for each spread. You can see part of this process in the video above! All in all, this series offers 832 pages of original illustration, plus cover designs (26) for each book too
Mrs. Wigglebum’s belt was later added in clean up!
After illustration was finalized, it was then “cleaned” up, making sure the colors extended to the borders, small illustration edits were added (such as book titles in the bookshelf, or adding a belt to Mrs. Wigglebum’s dress). After clean up, the books were assembled digitally, then sent to the team at Walsworth Publishing to be printed. Once the printing proofs were approved, printing began. And in a few weeks, physical products were delivered, allowing us to deliver the books to you!
While this is an extremely condensed version, the process took thousands of hours. We couldn’t have done it without the help from everyone working on this project! Again, be sure to watch the video above to see part of the illustration process, and check out The Plant Warrior!