Infusing Motion, Emotion & Magic in your Illustrations!
Infuse your art with the three ingredients that level-up any illustration—especially in children's books!
Why Only Three Things?
True. There are a lot of super important aspects in an illustration such as color, composition & content (and other ones that don’t start with the letter c, probably). But those ones you should be baking into your thumbnail ideas from the start. These three can easily be forgotten and they really do elevate any illustration (plus they often include all the other ones as well, which you’ll see as you read on!).
If I feel like an image is lackluster or boring then I most likely haven’t added these.
Read on for ideas for all three!
How Do I Include Motion in My Illustrations?
By motion I mean two things:
Actual objects in the illustration that are moving (eg. car, hair in the wind, bird)
Composition/lines that push the eye through the illustration (rather than leading the eye)
Examples of motion:
In the illustration above (From Maybe A Whale, words by Kirsten Pendreigh) I have motion going on in five different ways:
The whale is obviously in motion under the water…but this is tied to—
The wave! It looks like a bulging wave that will move across the page if we just wait a moment. This wave not only is an object in motion, but it also pushes the eye* across the page.
(**I’m saying “pushing the eye” instead of “leading the eye” because I think it has to be quite strong to really force the viewer’s gaze and be considered as motion.)
The rain in the background, shown as broken lines, is in motion and also pushes the eye down to the water.
The kayak. It is an object that is in motion, shown by the paddling poses of the kayakers, as well as the slight water trail behind it.
BONUS - the whole illustration pushes the eye across the page because it goes from dark to light. Automatically your eye will scan towards the right side because it is brighter.
You can use lines, color, brightness, contrast, shape and composition in strong ways that will set the page in motion—even if everything in the image is still.
If an object in the image is in motion, you can show that through pose, slight blurring, highlighting the effects (footsteps, hair flowing out behind as they run), and ‘action lines’ aka ‘speed lines’*.
(**action lines or speed lines can be seen in comics a lot—they aren’t really part of the image’s content, but they extrude out in the direction of action to emphasis it.)
How Do I Include Emotion In My Illustration?
While there are many ways to do this, I’m just going to highlight a couple. The main point I’m trying to make is that there should be SOME KIND of emotion on each page.
Where are the emotions on my page?
Of course, the characters should have some kind of emotion happening. This is key to any story.
The setting can radiate emotion by using different colors, lighting, shadows, contrasts and shapes*.
(**Are triangles sadder than circles? Are squares angrier than ovals? You decide)
The content on the page can give clues to the emotion. Are the leaves on the tree drooping or perky? Is that doll strewn across the floor forgotten, or carefully placed on the bed? Is the scene wild or calm?
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Examples of emotion:
In the illustration above (From Maybe A Whale, words by Kirsten Pendreigh) you will probably catch the vibes of sadness or concern very quickly. Because this is a kids book and not a drama, it’s subtler than it would be in a graphic novel or movie.
This book begins right after a girl’s grandpa has died. This makes for a slower, calmer beginning.
The colors tend toward cool and darker. The stars are the most vibrant color shown. Because it is an evening/night scene, the shadows and lighting automatically seem subdued.
The expressions on their faces are low-key or sad.
In the first image the girl sits in a way that shows she is drawing inward—especially as she has separated herself physically from her mom. In the second image her feet are resting or lowered, rather than up and playful.
The photo on the wall is quiet and a bit nostalgic, without faces on the people.
Perhaps the starkness of the images, with very few objects or details surrounding the people (flat walls, solid-colored couch, night sky with no stars) also lends a hand creating emotion for the page.
Ideally, everything in the image should work together to emanate an emotion to the reader.
How Do I Include Magic In My Illustration?
This one is a bit trickier but always pays off if you can make it happen!
First, what do I mean by magic?!
I’m talking about that “little something special” that turns an ordinary, well-made image into a memorable, extra-ordinary, can’t wait to see what comes next, type of illustration.
I don’t always get this right. For sure, I do not. But when I remember and execute it well, I can definitely see the difference!
Examples of emotion:
Consider the two images above (From Maybe A Whale, words by Kirsten Pendreigh) and you can easily see that adding in the stars in the water created a more magical image. Not only does it reference the night sky in the earlier pages of the book, but it creates a sense of wonder without diminishing the action happening in the scene.
The two images above are a bit more subtle, but I’m sure you’ll agree the first image (while serviceable) is missing the little ‘oomph’ of magic. It doesn’t have the backlighting in the trees or the particle effects in the whale’s breath.
Here’s some ideas:
particle effects (little dots sprayed over an area)
backlighting / rimlighting
a bold color used in a surprising way
a gradient effect in color or light
You might call them special effects in a way. Sure, they aren’t mandatory, but they look great.
Fabulous! Now you know about my favourite three things to add to illustrations: Motion, Emotion & Magic! I hope this gives you some inspiration for your own artwork—it’s certainly reminded me to look over my current illustrations and make sure I’m not missing anything.
✏️ Learn more about me as an illustrator or check out the kid’s books I’ve illustrated over on my website here.
🦋 Say hello over on BlueSky where I hang out quite a bit!