Doodles

Now that we have most of the characters sorted out (well, sort of), let's move on to the scenes . (The scene part should actually come after storyboarding - where we already know exactly what texts goes to which page and we can then intelligently illustrate the scene as to best fit the texts, story and flow. But sometimes I randomly pick up the scenes from the story just to practice on). Here, I'm testing out one of the scenes where Mimi asked the little fish what's her name. © Latfy Anuar Latif Imagine the illustration above on a 23 cm x 23 cm page. It's big!  So for this series I think there will more detailings on the drawings, so that children can stay longer on the page. Compared to the Anak Dinosaur series (where we have multiple actions/scenes in one page - see below), this series will have less number of total illustrations, but higher level of details. Check this out – 7 actions in one page! © Latfy Anuar Latif For the ...

For the moment, I'm pretty happy with the fish character. No it doesn't have a name yet, and won't be. The book is written in such a way that it allows the reader to give the fish a name :). I think I can now move to the three children that have roles (talking parts) in the story. There's a girl named Mimi. I assume she is around 3-4 years old, since she can talk properly, eats fried noodles, and innocently feed noodles to the fish. Then there's 'Boy', who still carries around his feeding milk bottle. So he should be just below three (even though I've seen some 6 year-old carry those). And there is Edi, who's able to pick up the small aquarium and shake it, because he thinks the fish likes it! Edi must be somewhat older to have that strength. Five years-old perhaps? Here's my initial sketches: These are new characters. The names (Mimi, Boy, Edi) were given by the author. My initial leaning was to re-use the kid characters that have...

Here are some more Anak Ikan sketches. Uh-oh, I think I just came up with another character. Unlike the previous character sketches, this new one seemed to have its eyes to pop up a bit. And probably has a more kid/child attitude. It looked like a goldfish - with big eyes and a more elaborate fins. Hmmm... maybe I should make this one a girl (most of the other characters in the series are boys come to think of it).  How do we make it a girl? Easy. Just add eyelashes!  Add a bit of colour (again, this colour is not final. I'll probably change it to something more feminine  after I get feedbacks from the kids.) And you could add some blushes on the cheek – and oh,  –pimples! (I call them sweet pimples :) Hello little fish! Part 1   |   Part 2   |    Part 3    |   Part 4

I'll be breaking this entry into a few parts, written as the illustration process progresses from start to finish. So you'll be reading this as the story unfolds - as if standing behind me watching me draw! Careful not to breathe behind my neck though ;) -------------- Moving on to our next children picturebook for DR Bubbles series: Hold your breath, - this time we're going underwater - DR bubbles & Anak Ikan! Yes, kids looove animals. The DR Bubbles & Anak Kucing was a big hit with children. DR Bubbles (he's the writer for this book) is currently finalising the story/texts with our editor, so I cannot work on the storyboarding yet. But I have the very rough text draft with me, so I can already begin with developing the characters and the scenes (background settings. Yup, settings give context to the story, and floors and walls. Otherwise our characters would be floating in space!) Here are the characters (again, this is not final. So we wo...

A lot has changed since the last time. Doodles became books, and characters became smaller (but more plump!) – that's the evolution of things! :)

Whoa, it’s been a while. All those tiny doodles that I’ve been doing (both digitally and traditionally) for the last few years were actually preparations for the BIG thing – doing illustrations for children books series! Well, who would have guessed. It started with a doodle of one my best friends - DR Bubbles; and an idea that we wanted to self-publish (more like self-print) children storybooks that we can encourage friends to sponsor the printing costs, so that we can then give it to sick kids in hospitals (find out what we do here: www.facebook.com/myredbubbles ). So I started with a manuscript of maybe a 24-page children storybook (one or two sentences per page), and sent it to Iskandar aka DR Bubbles – he’s a certified translator (and clown doctor), so he’s good with the grammar etc – for proofing. That took a couple of months to get it polished (we didn't have any deadlines, so we kind of strolled through it casually). DR Bubbles early sketches Meanwhi...