I think deciding wether I take the book into print is important at this stage as I need to consider if the dimensions and other specifications for the book are able to be easily printed, as well as the cost of it. COVID might be having an impact on printers, so I don’t know if it could be printed on time for the submission, as well as the scale of how much I want to illustrate for the book. If that is the case then it would have to stay digital for submission and I could maybe get it printed at a later date.

From doing some research into online book printers these two seem to have enough customisable options for books. COVID doesn’t seem to have affected being able to get books from them and delivery isn’t too bad time wise.

These are examples similar to what I want to achieve with my book, and give me ideas for layout and what kind of size/dimensions to possibly use. They are illustrators that have effectively conveyed information alongside or within the illustrations which  emphasises the people, events, facts, etc.

I have known for a few months that I wanted to do something history related because as a whole I have always had an interest in history, from learning at school and watching Horrible Histories at home. It would give me a starting point as well, rather than coming up with an entire, original story for example. Again I felt that illustrating a book would be able to fit with my aspirations of going into book illustration and in doing so I can show that I am capable of producing the work for a book.

​I had some other ideas of illustrating book covers for the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman or covers for David Almond books, but in the end I have decided I definitely would prefer to have one project of illustrating a fully finalised book on Scottish women throughout history. It is a topic that I think needs to be taught more at schools as there was very little mention of any Scottish women when I was at school and illustrating a book aimed for 10 - 14 year olds would be the age range I am going for. I feel like it is an area that has only recently been started to be researched in more depth and there are examples of books written on this topic, but from what I could find only one book has a more illustrative tone, but not with as much imagery (from what I can tell on Amazon) as I want to include.