The basic scene shows the main character, Greedy Goat, arriving in the city. He's happily surprised when he sees all of the food the city has to offer. The rhyming text reads:
Pizza! Pretzels! Burgers! Fries!
Goat could not believe his eyes.
Pounds of pastries! Tons of tarts!
On grocery shelves and sidewalk carts.
The illustration began with a color sketch and then a final black and white inked drawing that I intended to use for the dummy (I made some changes to the wording):
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Neither of these illustrations are the one I decided to use in the final dummy, though. The first one doesn't put the focus on Goat (at the extreme left), and in the second one, he's too large. They didn't seem to me like an actual illustration, rather they were individual pictures on one page. My son, who's an artist, suggested that I go for something with more perspective. I worked out several thumbnails of perspective drawings:
The last sketch became the final drawing. You can pick out some of the same elements, such as the woman holding the little girl's hand at the bottom/left, Goat at the bottom/middle, the shoppers at the grocery middle/left, and the burger wagon bottom/right.
The illustration still needs a little bit of tweaking, but I'm happy with how it's turned out. Goat is in the middle at the bottom and all of the action is taking place around him. There's a lot of diversity and a lot of different elements, like people selecting food, buying food, carrying food, and eating food. I am considering adding something or someone to one of the top windows on the right and I still have to finish painting the burger scene. Lastly, I'll add the text to the washed-out spot at the top/middle. When it's done, I'll include it in the submission package along with these two finished paintings:
I found two really cool fonts to use: "Bite Me" for the cover, and "Cinnamon Cake" for the interior illustrations. Perfect to use for a book with lots of drawings of food!
