Part 2: Sketching

My Storybook Process

This part focuses on me trying to sketch everything I envisioned in my head and digitizing them to the computer. I went through many trial and errors and the painstaking manual grind of taking pictures, importing, cleaning them up in Photoshop.

Every. Single. One... rinse and repeat tediously... but later I learned my lesson.

...basically went HAM all through May.

Sketches

(Already an improvement lol)

pencil sketch collage

pencil sketch collage

pencil sketch collage

pencil sketch collage

Image of a pencil sketch on a sketchbook of a Lion and a Bunny under a tree

2021 | May

I was quite stubborn

Despite knowing life would be easier on a tablet, I wanted to draw everything pencil on paper to preserve that authentic “sketch” look so everything took longer to draw. I also had to be extremely sure before erasing anything because I was not confident I could easily redo any of them.

Image of handwritten alphabet letters in blue pen

Everything to do with quotes and titles shall be in my own handwriting...

...and I would handwrite things over and over again until it looked nice when imported into digital format.

I even tried creating my handwriting into a font to keep consistencies and sanity, but I decided against it because it didn't look natural and overly robotic. So I continued doing the "Bart Simpsons" until I was happy with the end result.

First draft pencil sketch book cover of Can You Hear the Halcyons Sing?

2021 | June

1st draft cover

Sometime in June, I put together the first rough draft of the storybook with drawings sprinkled all over. This is the book cover. The one thing that haven't changed is how I envision the book cover - as you can see the composition basically stayed untouched.

Then the same friend pushed for colour, saying if I am going to publish then I have to do it, believing I can do much better beyond black and white.

I know she’s right about the colour, but at the time I really didn’t think I can do it without screwing up the OG drawings, nor was I confident and experienced in digital colouring.

I gruelled over it for WAY too long, and ended up taking a hiatus from the drawing bit.

Albeit a break on drawing, I was still constantly thinking of how to refine the story and the writing style.

Pencil sketch of an Owl

2021 | SEPTEMBER

A moment of blitz writing

First time going home in 2 years!

I have this Owl character in the story, but it was missing something for me. Somehow on the flight back home, an idea came to mind and I wrote every idea down and even had time to refine a lot of the writing and rhyming scheme...

Chapter 7 was basically written in 4.5 hour in the air.

Next: Colouring with Photoshop