My Work as Colorist on Mattel’s Barbie; A Fashion Fairytale Storybook

A design firm in London contacted this freelance cartoonist for hire and asked if I wanted to be a colorist on Barbie; A Fashion Fairytale Storybook. I, of course, jumped at the chance to work on the project. The book had a very tight timeline and a number of artists working on the project. The extremely talented sketch artists were located in London and were employees for the design firm (I think). I believe I was one of two or three colorists on the project. I don’t know where they were located.

An agreement was made at a fixed price per “page”. I thought great, I could probably color two a week. But then I discovered that the “page” was actually a two-page spread in the book and not the single book page I had in mind. That moment was a learning experience as the work took more time than I had originally planned on.

Note to Artists: if you are considering doing commercial work for clients, make sure you clarify your assumptions, such as the size of the “page” as mentioned above.

As with most licensed characters, the project came with specific style information such as the number of eye lashes Barbie had on the upper lids and the lower lids. It also came with specifics on skin color, lip color, eye color, hair colors (3 in all for hair base, highlights and low lights) and the list goes on. Style information is extremely important because when the illustrations are completed, it all has to look like one artist had illustrated the book from beginning to the end. The storybook was a short printed version of a 3D movie Mattel had produced. The only reference material was primarily screen captures of the 3D movie, and a few pieces of art that had been approved.

Mattel turned out to have an incredible eye for detail. With this storybook, they liked a lot of sparkle and glitter, highlights and low lights in the character’s hair. My skills as a colorist grew a lot during this project. Below you will see some of the sketches that came to me from the talented sketch artists in London, and the final coloring I did for the book.

I hope you enjoy looking at the sketches and final illustrations as much as I enjoyed working on Mattel’s Barbie; A Fashion Fairytale Storybook!

The next illustration involving the rain scene, I had to illustrate twice because the design firm was uncertain which Mattel would have preferred. Unfortunately, neither illustrations made it into the final book (at least, not the book versions that I have seen). Below are both of the colored versions I illustrated.

Note to Artists: Another lesson learned here – make sure you clarify and negotiate before the start of any project for additional pay if you are asked to illustrate additional versions of the same sketch.