The Ant Who Boosted My Portfolio
Throwing everything I learned in 8 years into my 2nd published book
WAY back in 2016 I was hired by Think Equal to illustrate a story by Deshan Tennekoon - ‘Reha to the Rescue’. It was my very first book project and I was keen to do a good job. Unfortunately, my work/life balance was in shambles at the time, and I ended up planning my time poorly, rushing many aspects of it. Even though the book came out reasonably well, and is still used in classrooms to this day, when I look back on it, I can see quite a lot missing. The spreads could have been more varied i.e. more spot illustrations or full page spreads to break up the double page spreads, and the layouts could have been more dynamic to complement the drama. The visual language could have been a lot more refined. I still like the colour palette, but it seems to fall flat on the last spread. The cover needed a LOT more thought. And the list goes on.
I kept it out of my portfolio for a few years. The problem was I had never really studied picture books before embarking on this project. Eight years and one MA in illustration focusing on picture books later, all the things I would have done differently stick out like sore thumbs — ouch!
Finding your rhythm as an illustrator takes time, and I realised that this new project — ‘The Ant Who Walked to The Edge of The World’ written by Shehan Karunatilaka — would be a golden opportunity to eke out what my voice as a picture book illustrator could be.
I took stock of the techniques and materials I enjoyed — watercolour, pencil crayons and Procreate with True Grit’s Chromograph pack came out on top. I then made a point to start using them at even the research and development stage.
Moving on to Procreate to articulate the characters as finals really helped finalise their look. I won’t reveal too many, but here are the main players, Kumar and Duleep:
In the end I settled on painted backgrounds with characters and finer details digitally added. I strove to keep the process of timelines and liaising with the publisher/author as professional as possible, but found sticking to deadlines once again a bit challenging. Turns out life is always hectic — who would have thought. Anyway, once I did manage to get into the flow of things, the book started shaping up to be something I would be immensely proud of.
And yes, I gave the cover MUCH more thought this time around!
In the end it was 6 months of work condensed into 60-something pages, and I couldn’t be more proud of what we’re about to publish. There were so many new things to keep in mind — consistency of multiple characters, time of day, scale, light and shadow, intertextual relationships, and adapting my ‘style’ to suit a book for children, to name a few. I’d be thrilled to do more books in this style, so I’m glad this is what emerged during my process. And, of course, it is now front and centre in my portfolio.
‘The Ant Who Walked to The Edge of The World’ is out soon through Papaya Books. I’ll be announcing it here when the day comes so, I guess, watch this space?
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It’s a great story of your development 😃 and wonderful! Really amazing artwork done here! Congratulations