Hey there! I’m excited to share my journey to Manila where I was invited by the Austrian Embassy to illustrate a children’s book called “Sala La Init, Sala Sa Lamig,” (In Hot Mess or Cold Mess), written by Czyka Tumaliuan and published by her publishing house “Kwago”. This bilingual book tackles the important topic of bipolar disorder.

The concept behind the illustrations for this children’s book was to create a hand-drawn feel using a basic set of colors and styles.

I chose to work in Procreate to achieve this, and used different main colors for each page or spread to convey the emotions of the scene. The text was already finished by the author, so I concentrated on the art-style and how it could best complement the story.

During the sketching and planning phase, I created a storyboard to visualize the illustrations and ensure they effectively conveyed the story. After minor corrections, the storyboard was approved by the author Czyka. This allowed me to move forward with the final illustrations with a clear understanding of how they should look and feel.

In the creation and finalizing stages, I worked on bringing the illustrations to life by staying true to the concept and keeping everything simple, textured and with just one or two colors on each page. There were a few changes in the number of pages, but overall we managed to maintain the mid-century art feel and vintage vibe that we wanted to achieve. By using Procreate and keeping the number of colors to a minimum, I was able to create a distinct, hand-drawn look that complemented the story and the text.

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