Trace & Learn: Counting Board Book (Post 4)- Figuring Out Layouts, Tools, and My Process

 Understanding the Space

I spent some time researching board book sizes to understand the actual space I was working with.

I settled on:

• 6 x 6 inches per page
• 12 x 6 inches per spread

That decision helped ground everything that came after.

My Workflow (A Bit Messy, But It Worked)

I started with thumbnails on paper, keeping the page ratio in mind. After a few explorations, I scanned my sketches and began arranging them digitally using Affinity Photo.

From there:

• I created rough layouts
• Added text and margins in Affinity Publisher
• Exported pages as JPEGs

At the same time, I was refining my character sketches in Procreate.

Then came color.

I used a technique I learned from

How To Create A Perfect Color Palette For Digital Art by Gia Graham, and applied it to build palettes for each spread.

I blocked colors in Procreate first, then moved everything into Affinity Designer because I wanted the final output to be vector.

One thing I really enjoyed was using textured brushes to keep a slightly rough, hand-drawn feel—even within vector work.

Also, a small personal moment I loved:

I reused an old rainbow texture I had made years ago (just as a warm-up exercise back then!) and turned it into ribbons for eggplant characters. It felt nice to finally give that texture a purpose.