Picture Book Class Project

Illustration is one of the loneliest jobs in the world. If we don’t actively seek out a community, we can end up spending most of our time alone. Not that being alone is a bad thing—it’s just that sometimes, as human beings, we need human interaction.

So… one of my little tricks for that is joining online classes.

Online? Yes, it is! Haha! Even online friends can sometimes be enough.

This one is from Sebingkisah, an online class platform from Indonesia. Unlike other online class platforms with similar price ranges, such as Skillshare or Domestika, the classes on this platform have deadlines and assignments that are reviewed by the teachers.

I joined a Children’s Book Illustration class by Milkha last month, and the theme of the class was Sleeping Beauty.

The class started with an online Zoom meeting, where Kak Milkha introduced herself and explained what we would be learning over the following month. She also gave us a little introduction to children’s book illustration.

After that, the class continued through WhatsApp, pre-recorded videos, and slides. The format is pretty standard, but what I love most is the interaction with the teacher, where we can ask questions and get feedback along the way. That’s something I rarely get when taking online classes.

For the first project, we had to create a character sheet based on a character of our choice from the Sleeping Beauty story. I chose King Stefan because I wanted to explore royal clothing, especially the kind of clothing worn during that era.

I found out that Stefan was a common royal name in old Serbia, so I decided to start my research there.

Here is what I get from google:

Here is my process of making character turn around for King Stefan character.

After that, we make a one page character sheet, which includes Title, Character Description, Color Palette, Charater Turn-Around, and Selected Pose.

Very happy with the result!

Then, the teacher chose one design from each character to become the final character design for the story.

Luckily, my King Stefan was selected! 🥹

The final task was to create a full-spread illustration for a page of our choice. I chose the first spread because I wanted to explore the environment—and, of course, I wanted to draw baby Aurora!

And here is the final illustration!

Don’t forget to consider margin!