Part 4: Colouring with Procreate

My Storybook Process

This part focuses on Procreate.

image of Apple iPad Pro and Apple Pencil

2022 | March

I caved.

One weekend I was working on my handwriting again for digital import, and I reached a breaking point realizing my time can be better spent if I simply stop being stubborn in my inefficient workflow. So I caved and got an iPad and Procreate.

To no one's surprise, it eventually became one of those “why didn’t I do it sooner?!” moments kicking myself because I could have saved a LOT of time.

But by the time I got it, I was pretty drained from my inefficiencies toiling for the first draft that I decided I needed yet another break.

Drawing of a Bunny sleeping

2022 | April

Taking a break

Nothing much happened in April, I was trying to wait for people’s feedback on the 1st draft before I do any more work on it, so the timing worked out.

The break did me a lot of good, because I came back with fresh eyes reading my ramblings and it made me realize I really needed to re-write a lot of the story.

This is why a lot of what was shared before you’ll probably never see in the final.

2022 | May to July

Back at it (yet) again!

I spent some time here and there fiddling with Procreate and learning through tutorial videos. It took some time getting used to drawing through the app, and at first my workflow was still 80% Photoshop and only 20% Procreate…

...but my friend swore by the all-Procreate process and thinks I should do it too, sooner rather than later. And since now I can draw faster, I should start redoing all my drawings so they can be even more consistent (aka not half-assed).

ONCE AGAIN she was right, especially now that I’ve gotten more comfortable drawing digitally, it really is just easier to draw better ones with more convenient tools.

Year in Review:

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Owl vast field scene (with time lapse)

Before and after drawing comparison of an Owl perched on a tree
Image of a Bunny and an Owl under a starry night scene

Fishy pond scene (with time lapse)

Before and after image comparison of a Bunny and a Fishy in a pond
Image of a Bunny and a Fishy in a pond
Image of digital colour palettes

Colour palettes

All the colours you see in the book.

Collage of pencil sketches of different Lion and Bunny poses

Character collections

I save a collection of every character pose I've drawn so that instead of redrawing from scatch, I can reuse them as a starting point, otherwise I find it really hard to keep them consistent. I'm pretty sure everyone does something like this in various ways.

The "Starkeeper scene" below is an example of how they were used.

Starkeeper scene (with time lapse)

Before and after drawing comparison of a Lion and Bunny looking at a Star
Before and after drawing comparison of a Lion and Bunny looking at a Star
Image of a storyboarding sketch for book layout planning

My visual to-do list

Instead of a written checklist of things left to complete, I drew a crude thumbnail layout of the book to mark up instead. This worked very well for me because I'm a visual person.

Pink marks the pages I still need to fill or draw. At this point everything needs to be read/reviewed so there was no point to mark up what needs writing.

Next: Printing & Publishing