The Chronicles of Narnia. First Book.

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Hello!

Today I want to talk about a project that I started a year ago. I spent about six months on the book, and today I already hold it in my hands. This is one of my favorite children's books and I still can't believe I was lucky enough to illustrate it.

Thank you, Great Star Media Co., Ltd.

These is The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. One year later, I finally have this book in my hands.

The book has a dust jacket, and under it is a beautiful cover with sparkling blue embossing.

The publisher also prepared a surprise for readers and for me: they added two sheets of stickers inside the book. Wow!

I want to talk a little about the process of work and show some sketches and finished illustrations. But first, please see some more photos.

Let's go to Narnia together.

Work very often begins with test illustrations. This is the spread I drew first. This way the publisher can see if my style suits a particular book in their mind.

This is the moment Edmund first enters Narnia and meets the White Witch.

But in order to draw an illustration, you must first come up with the concepts of all the characters. Meet my Susan, Edmund, Lucy and Peter:

And here are the first sketches of the White Witch, I took the second version into the book, since it was more in line with the text. At the same time, I didn’t want her to look like my other mistress of the north - the Snow Queen (this project is also on my Behance):

After receiving approval from the publisher, I began to make sketches for the entire book. There are 44 illustrations in different sizes, including spreads and half-page illustrations. It took me a whole month, I was not involved in other projects at that time.

In addition to 44 main illustrations, there were also small vignettes in the book. Such as this Mrs. Beaver:

Or as a portrait of Clive Staples Lewis:

I really enjoy drawing writers in the style of book illustrations.

In addition to the illustrations, the publisher and I spent a lot of time designing the cover. This was a real challenge! But also a good experience.

These are the ideas we considered. The final decision was due to the fact that we wanted to make a cover that is not similar to others in composition, since on many Narnia book covers you can find a Lion's head or a Wardrobe.