Finalising the illustrations for Christmas Peace

Danger in the lake

I finished off the main illustrations by the deadline. Then we sat and chose the order of the illustrations in the book. We had more illustrations than needed so we prioritised the strength of message of the illustrations and left out those that weren't as beneficial to the overall arrangement of the book. We rearranged some illustrations as they were able to fit in more than one position in the book.

It took eight months to illustrate Christmas Peace. In that time I created a couple of hundred illustrations including spots, full illustrations or mostly completed concepts. Initially I accepted the job to illustrate twelve illustrations - one for every two chapters. This amount increased as we agreed that spot illustrations would enhance the feel of the book. This increased again to add twenty-four unique Nisse headers. Some illustrations took a hours like the Nisse once they were conceptualized. But detailed illustrations, such as the Viborg Cathedral took a couple of weeks to complete. The cover illustration took a few weeks as the concept changed quite a few times. Redrawing dragon scales takes a long time for each new position of the snake.

Viborg Cathedral destroyed by monsters

Lars negotiated with the printer, Norhaven, to add more pages to the book since the earlier versions would not allow the space for that amount of illustrations. This way we were able to accommodate the illustrations we had chosen and more.

Henrik Zacho & Co received the illustrations and updated the manuscript with a new layout, cover and font choice. Finally, the compiled manuscript was sent to the Norhaven to be printed.

Continue to the making of the Monsters and Creatures exhibition