Article: When it comes to illustrating, you need to keep the dimensions of your pages in mind to make the most of it. This includes leaving enough space for the text, and making your drawings big enough that they occupy an acceptable amount of space on the page. To get a better grasp of this, it's a good idea to make miniature 'storyboards' to visualize how big certain objects on the page should be when compared to others. Doing a double-page illustration (where one panel of the story encompasses two pages to make a larger image) is an ambitious move if this is your first time making a picture book, but it's perfect for climactic parts of the story that somehow warrant more than a single frame. Before you even set them to paper in a serious way, you should have a very clear idea how you want your art to occupy space on the page. Having a notebook on the side to plan out and develop your ideas freehand is far preferred over jumping into the picture book impromptu. While you're planning out the illustrations, try to make them as close and applicable to the writing as possible. Whenever you're left in doubt, refer to what you've written in the story. Try to keep a consistent tone and style throughout the book. A picture book that goes all over the place will stand a much weaker chance of making an impression than one that drives the same point consistently. The vast majority of stories center around the exploits of characters. For most traditional narratives, you'll need to get really good at drawing (and redrawing) a handful of characters. It is recommended you spend some time practicing your character designs once you have a basic framework for your story. The more you draw the character, the more chances you'll have to get the look right and change things if need be. Visual design is incredibly important for characters in picture books. If you have trouble visualizing what your story's characters look like, try meditating and letting the story play out in your head. Failing that, studying the character design in other books may give you the inspiration you need. Making a picture book at home, there are lots of thing you can do to inject life into your art. You don't have to rely solely on pen and markers; other things, like tape and glued construction paper, can turn your picture book into three-dimensional art. For depth-perspective backgrounds, cut out shapes of construction paper and carefully glue them onto your background. Three-dimensional craftwork is particularly effective when you're trying to realize things like mountain ranges or hills. If you take a liking to this type of crafts work, you could do your entire illustrations this way. Smaller details with tape or construction paper will take a much greater degree of skill to pull off however. If done right, planning should have taken a long time to complete. This will take a great deal of the guesswork out of your illustrating. Using your plans and storyboards as a starting point, realize your illustrations as best as you can, leaving clear space to fit your text. Should you get a couple of pages in and don't like the look of it, you can start over again or go back to practicing before retrying.  Practice is super important before you start drawing the book itself. If the images get progressively better as the book goes on, it'll show the reader that the book was more of a learning process than a finished product. Whatever you do, keep your illustrations consistent in tone and relative quality. Be sure to be as colourful as you can, unless the content of the picture book somehow suggests against it. Picture books need to be eye-catching above all else, and monochromatic sketches are going to leave less of an impression than full-bodied, coloured-in images. The title page should be eye-catching and bold. It needs to be something that captures the tone and essence of your picture book, all the while getting people hooked for whatever may lie between the covers. Take extra time to make the front cover as strong as possible; make it the best demonstration of your skills as an illustrator. And don't forget to make the title itself big and prominent on the page. You're definitely going to want people to know what they're reading.  Professional picture books have a front cover and title page separately. For the sake of an at-home book, these two should be merged into one. Adding your author's credits near the book title is always recommended, even for at-home creations.

What is a summary?
Outline a storyboard. Organize and develop your illustration ideas. Design and practice drawing your characters. Add dimension to the illustrations. Draw your finished illustrations on high-quality paper. Draw up a title page.