Creating an illustrated book

[Note: This will be our second meeting, but please do join even if you didn't make the first one]

Illustrated books are a fascinating hybrid art form, suitable for all ages and topics.

This is a call to all (budding, hidden, dreaming) artists willing to take on the long-term project of crafting a full illustrated book, from cover to cover -- whether you can already draw & paint or not (see below).

What will we do?
We will briefly discuss techniques, styles, types of illustrated books, and tools. We will then spend an hour or so working on our own ideas for an illustrated book. No worries if you can't draw well, you can still make plenty of progress on the contents of your book and then do your drawings later on the computer. You can choose to work on your overall story, or focus on a single page or two. In the end, you can show what you've done if you like, and we can offer kind comments and suggestions.

Each person can make their own full book, or collaborations may arise spontaneously during this or follow-up meetings.

Do I need to be good at drawing & painting?
No. We will discuss digital techniques for those of us who are not great at drawing.

What do I need to bring?
Please bring something to draw: Any paper (even a normal line notebook), would be fine; and any pen, marker or pencil. Alternatively, a tablet or anything with a touchscreen (even a large smartphone is fine).

Should I do something beforehand?
You can start thinking of topics for your book. Also, if you want to start getting an idea of some of the tools we can use, do bring your laptop and install the following software beforehand:
-Inkscape and/or Krita: Both are free and open-source vector-drawing tools. Krita also allows bitmaps, but Inkscape is far better for vectors, so it's your choice. You can instead use any combination of Procreate, Photoshop, Illustrator, GIMP, or any other software that you prefer, or you can choose to work completely analogously all the way and only scan your work at the end.
-DM's Photo-Paradies software (https://fotoparadies.de): We can use this to incrementally produce and visualise our work, and finally to print our completed book semi-professionally at DM. You can print your book anywhere else you like, of course, or you can keep it digital.

Cost
Officially, none. However, Meetup charges around 200€ yearly to keep this group running (😖), so a contribution of €10 towards those costs would be much appreciated 🙏🏽
Printing your book at the end should cost you around 40€ if you do it at DM.

What if I can't make it this time?
No worries. This will be a long process. Just send the organiser a private note so that we know you're interested in future meetings.

Commitment warning
Overall, creating a full book will be a long process, taking perhaps a year (or at least a few months if you work fast). There's no deadline, we'll just try to keep each other inspired.

[cover image credit: Maurice Sendak's 1963 masterpiece "Where the Wild Things Are"]