Dan Taylor is a Midlands-based illustrator specialising in children's books. His latest, 'Milo and the Moon Kangaroo' will be available to buy on April 29th. I've worked with Dan for a good few years and love his approach, distinctive style and personality he injects into each of his pieces. We caught up with him recently to ask how he broke in to the industry and his plans for the future.

What are your influences at the moment?

I’d have to say a lot of Mid 20th century design, whether it be packaging design, animation, interior design or architecture from this period seems to filter into my work. Post war America is a subject I find fascinating, and I never tire of looking through books about this period. I’m a big fan of a European illustrator named Abner Graboff who created a lot of children’s books during this period that have a wonderful simplicity and still look fresh and inspiring today. I also enjoy Looking at concept art from a lot of animation studios very inspirational, and it’s fascinating to see how characters are formed and and the worlds they inhabit developed.

What is the usual process you go through when creating an illustration?

Usually a lot of tea drinking and thumb twiddling to begin with!  Since having bought a new camera, I’ve recently got into photography, and I have enjoyed going out taking pictures, and then drawing characters directly onto these photos in Photoshop using a wacom tablet.  I personally sometimes find it helpful to draw characters inhabiting our world before you dream up an imaginary one! Usually I sketch characters in a book when creating ideas or getting a feel for them.  Later on in the process I will trace the original sketches to get a more refined look and then scan them in and add colour digitally.  Sometimes scanning paintbrush marks or bits of old recycled card and fabric for texture.

How did you get into this industry?

During my time at university, I decided to enter The Macmillan Prize for children’s books – which was open to all UK art students nationwide. I came Third in the competition with my entry “Mike and the Moon Kangaroo" and then entered again the following year with “Mr Gloomy” which was commended and displayed in the exhibition. After the two awards, I figured I had a knack for it, and decided to pursue children’s books as a possible career.  After sending work off to different publishers, I had some interest from Macmillan, which didn’t really take off, but then received a phone call from Simon and Schuster who were interested in my work and wanted me to illustrate a story for them. I’ve since gone on to illustrate “Dogfish” by Gillian Shields which was featured on CBeebies Channel and shortlisted by Richard and Judy, and my re-written Macmillan entry “Milo and the Moon Kangaroo,” will also be published by Simon and Schuster in April.

What advice would you give to anyone wanting to do their own picture book or become an illustrator?

Do a lot of research into what’s out on the book market, visit bookshops take note of what’s selling and look at the current trends.  Make sure your characters and ideas are commercial too, unfortunately publishing is all about selling, and from my experience publishers aren’t keen on taking risks.  Once you have a portfolio of suitable characters and work, just keep sending work to different places. But remember to research publishers and the sort of books they sell… will your work be suited to them?  Try and chat to an editor first, by phone if you can or even arrange a possible meeting to show your work – and if you can’t get through, keep pestering until you do… don’t give up!  But remember to be patient too, publishing houses are busy places and they deal with lots of people submitting work. Another point is to be thick skinned and expect criticism, art directors can have a lot of opinions and you might not always agree with them!

Where do you want to be in 5 years?

Hopefully still writing and illustrating books!  It would be fantastic if I could create a character or story that could be developed into an animated series! I can only imagine how satisfying it would be to see your character come to life! Thanks to Dan for taking the time to speak with us, we certainly wish him every success with his latest book - can't wait to read it in full.