Credit: Simon & Schuster
EW: And then as far as the actual images, the content and the characters? And executing the artwork?
TD: With a design direction in mind, I began sketching the elements that were the essence of each story: The heroic Grace kids, the Spiderwick Estate, Thimbletack the house brownie and Mulgarath the villainous ogre. Because there were so many interlocking parts to each cover image, I realized it would be best to assemble the covers digitally. The problem was, I still wanted the jacket art to tie into the interior illustrations, which had all been done with old-fashioned dip pens. I solved this dilemma by combining a traditional pen (and ink-wash) drawing with digital coloring in Photoshop. The result is a hybrid of both styles, which I hope will speak to the fourth grade reader of today.
NEXT: Book 5
