Are you still faced with challenges affecting your children’s picture book writing? Illustrations are likely to be one of them.

How many pictures are necessary for a picture book?

Is there a way to develop one’s unique style?

How to determine the layout and text position? EEssays seeks to answer these questions below to help you become an author-illustrator, not just an author.

Picture Book: The Number of Illustrations

Generally, most picture books are 32 pages long. Therefore, illustrations take 24 pages out of these because of the title and copyright, as well as final pages. So you need 24 pictures for each page or 12 for double-page spreads.

Each picture can take one page or can cover two pages:

• In the first case, it is important to make the style of the two illustrations match.
• In the second case, a double-page picture should have proper composition (position of objects on both pages).

Particularly, it is advisable not to put a story character in the place of page folding, but on one of the two pages. The rest of the page should be scenery.

Importantly, you should choose an illustration for your cover page from those you use on pages or design it anew.

How Many Words Are Needed for a 32-Page Picture Book

The younger the child, the lower the word count you need to have the one involved in reading.

Particularly, for kids younger than 8, up to 1,000 words are advisable. For those above 8, the word count can start from 1,000 to 2,500 words, but should increase gradually with age.

Layout and Text Position

It is important to divide the text or story of your future book, planning for the respective ilustrations for each block of text.

Furthermore, make sketches for each piece of content, considering the layout and text position on the picture.

After successful planning, draw and paint illustrations based on sketches, scan them, and edit using one of the apps, like Photoshop, etc. Of course, you can use one of the graphic tools to make illustrations, but it will require some basic expertise.

Unique Style

Copying other ilustrator’s style is not the best step to take. Make pictures unique, filled with you creativity and imagination. Of course, look through illustrated books by other authors, but do this not right before preparing pictures for your book because it will help to avoid copying the idea.