Ruby Red: Process

Ruby Red is a picture book project, written by Margaret Davenport and illustrated by Elizabeth Young.

The main character, Ruby, making a delightful mess as she paints.

Initial Designs

Character Design: Ruby Red

All the red fish in the book have long, teardrop-shaped bodies. Ruby specifically has long, flowing fins that can flare or droop depending on her mood.

Character Design: Benny Blue

The blue fish are roughly square shaped, so they’re not very flexible on the vertical axis. Benny makes up for this with large pectoral fins (if he was human, he’d speak with his hands).

Color Pallet

A color pallet was chosen to ensure colors would match throughout the book. Each of the hues has a pre-selected highlight and shadow color.

Creating a Page

Step 1: Pencil

The pages were drawn by hand first, then scanned into the computer. Edits to the composition could be done digitally—as seen here.

Step 2: Lines

Using the pencil drawing as a guide, lines were drawn in Adobe Illustrator. Most fish are outlined in dark blue-violet rather than black.

Step 3: Digital Painting

Painting was done in Photoshop. Textures and effects were added to create an underwater atmosphere and make the characters pop from the page. Shadows were key to showing where the fish are floating in the water column.

Page Examples

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