Open Spaces Part 4 (Final Work)

After how many edits and posts (Click here to check them out! Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), I've finally gotten around finishing up this story book illustration! Woohoo!! With the help of other people's comments, here's what my final output looks like:

Spread 1

Spread 2

So main comments were the difficulty of reading because of the clutter in the background and the darkness of the whole thing. I came up with two resolutions: 1. make the text plain and straight, or 2. clean up the background. Well, as you can see, #2 won! Haha.

I really wanted to make this book fun, even if the story is kind of grim. And although I'd want to make the text simpler, I felt that the animation in the text more so emphasizes the art. Being a proud mama over the tiniest lines, I say YEY!! to seeing more of the details! Woot! Plus, the goal was to make this story fit for a children's book. So, the movements of the text and the shapes formed by the smoke and Lorena's "hair" (Do you see the shapes?) make the spreads pretty more interesting, if I do say so myself.

Finally finished with this project, I can't believe I could actually make something like this despite having used to softer illustrations and watercolor works. Now I can say I can take on cartoon-y illustration and bold sketches! Can't wait to work on more projects like this!

Hope you enjoyed:)

Open Spaces Part 3 (Lorena's Walls)

After a few days of lag, here's finally a new progress on the children's book art! (Check out how far it's come with the older posts! Stage 1 here and Stage 2 here)  I did a bit of change with the text by adding a bit of animation to it. I was hoping for it to look like it was "walling up" Lorena. Like some kind of barricade while she was sleeping. What do you think?

Hmmm... would this be better than the older version? And how about the other page? Haven't gotten around fixing that up too! Oh, the lack of time!

If there's a soul out there reading this, please comment to help me out! :)

Open Spaces Part 2 (Unedited Work)

From outlines to colored-in separated pages. Here are the unedited spreads from the Lorena Bumbilya outlines I posted last time! (Don't remember the post? Check out the initial stages of the project here.) You can click on the pictures to see them better.

1st spread

2nd spread

I'm still gathering some comments to edit these colored spreads. So stay tuned for more progress to come!

Do you have comments yourself? I'd love to hear them! Don't be afraid to click on that comment button down there and let me get some of your advice. :)

Open Spaces

A couple of months ago, I had this project to illustrate 2 spreads of an except from a "children's book story" (Lorena Bumbilya by Christian Tablazon). The quotations are intentional because although the task required me to draw for a children's book with bold lines, bright colors (y'know, the works), the story itself was not rainbows and butterflies. Set in the slums, it revolved around a malnourished girl who got her hair cut off because of lice, a symbolism (as I would take it) for her dignity and dreams.

The except went as such:

With her right eye, she watched the vehicles passing by all afternoon while she waited for alms. She was already unmindful of the smoke and heat of the noon.


It took her some time to find a place where she could sleep. This one didn't look so good but there's not much choice. Lorena curled up and tried to sleep and forget her hunger. She has tissue paper smeared with spaghetti sauce and banana peel for dinner. Now as she slowly dozed off, she imagined lots of expensive fruits in front of her instead of banana skin, or being inside a fast food munching on her coveted snacks and meals. But now, leftovers from the garbage can had to do. She also learned that the night was unusually cold when sleeping in open spaces. 


Sounds grim, right? Well, I hope my illustrations won't be too! Crossing my fingers here cuz this is actually the first time I'd be drawing a human person in such cartoony and bold (not to mention sad) outlines. Here are the first few stages of work on this project:

The bald Lorena amidst smoke

Smoke and Mirrors. Trying to create images in smoke.

Putting the two pages (of  the 1st spread) together. Too bad our scanner is too small!

Lorena in the cold cold night

Giving her back her hair and lost dignity

Dreaming of food

UniPin Water and Fade Proof Pigment Ink on bond paper

The next stages of this project has yet to be posted! :)