The reverse kingdom – Making a children book

Creating a children book was a beautiful challenge for me, and that I think every painter should try once. A very long project, but interesting. This is the last work of my illustration subject, a very adorable work and a very fun challenge.

One of the pages. Nebai (aka Edanya) is the username I use for most of my social networks.

The book that I had to do came from a song whose lyrics didn’t make things so easy.
Although the title can explain itself. Listening the song would be much more interesting 😂

A music video of the Songs of Maria Elena Walsh

English translation:

I was told that in the Reverse Kingdom
Birds swim and fish fly,
That cats don't go "meow" but say "yes"
Because they learn a lot of English.

I was told that in the Reverse Kingdom
Nobody dances with his feet,
That a thief is a policeman and another is a judge
And that two and two are three.

I was told that in the Reverse Kingdom
A bear can get into a walnut,
That babies have beards and moustaches
And that a year lasts a month.

I was told that in the Reverse Kingdom
There's a Pekinese dog
That falls upwards, and one time,
He couldn't get down after he'd fallen.

I was told that in the Reverse Kingdom
A man named Andrew
Has 1,530 chimpanzees
That you can see if you look at them.

I was told that in the Reverse Kingdom
A Spider and a centipede
Ride on chess horses
In the marquis' palace.

Let's go and see how
The Reverse Kingdom is.

The work this time was to make, from this little music, a children's book. But not any book, we couldn’t take it literally, we had to find a way to make everything more interesting and with logic (okay ... how do you expect us to find a logic out of it?) well, I like the challenges very much. 😂

I came up with 2 ideas:

A world of animals with great technology and intelligence:

Fishes with mini-planes, birds with diving suits, cats being students, dancing slugs, raccoons that were judges and policemen, and bears with houses in a city of cupulas (the nuts). (What do you think?)

A magical world with fantasy creatures:

Fish spirits, legendary birds that were born deep in the sea, cats that became humans, ghosts that dance, and the reverse Kingdom being in reality a portal for going to each of these worlds.

The chosen was the second one ... To create a fantasy world of this similar story taken in the depths of fantasies. 😂

I have not saved the progress for each of the illustration (since we are talking about a book with more than 14 illustrations + 32 sketches ... yeahhh this post will have many parts ...), what I can talk about is the progress in general and the origin of each of these paints.

Let's start with the guard

(For those at the end of the room: the illustrations that usually line in the inner side)

Sketch and main idea.

Since my idea of the reverse kingdom is about a world in which you can enter different "realities", I wanted to use a legend from the ancient Chinese cultures; there was a belief that the mirrors were portals that could allow us to enter other dimensions. So, I want to use it as a focus in this area of the book.

Final image

For certain reasons I prefer to show you the cover and back of the book at the end, for the moment we continue with ...

the first paragraph:

I was told that in the Reverse Kingdom
Birds swim and fish fly,
That cats don't go "meow" but say "yes"
Because they learn a lot of English.

…. Okaaayyy…. Time that the rain of ideas falls down 😂

Orphan bird:

My ideas or sketches

The first page is based on the legend of a bird with the head of a peacock, a crane body and eagle legs. Which is known for throwing its eggs to the sea:
"If they float it means that they will be good and this first one grabs them to take them back at the nest".
"If these sink, it meant that they were going to be bad babies, they were not recovered, and they will be destined to born under the sea and live the rest of their lives in the darkness of the ocean" (perfect for my children's story)

Final image

And here friends we have our first magical creature. although I didn’t say before, each of the illustrations were made with watercolor and crayons, as well as some editions in Photoshop (what would an illustrator do without this digital friend? 😂).

Flying Fish or Malolo Fish:

My ideas or sketches

Unfortunately, there are no legends around this fish, but yes a deep respect from the part of the Polynesian culture for its ability to fly over the seas, based on this I wanted to make the fish in reference to their culture, appearance, etc.

The final image

Using colors like red and blue I thought it would make a good contrast and adding a touch of orange to make it a little more striking.

the illustrations with their letters. i used the photoshop tools not just for adding the text but also to fix some mistakes i made with the water ( accidentally i burned the paper (it means i added so much colors for the paper to break or to saturate)

Witches in the shape of cats:

My ideas or sketches

It was one of easiest, since there are innumerable legends around the cats, the most interesting for this page was the ones with semi-human beings that could be transformed into cats. Among those legends there is one about black cats that were actually hidden witches.

Final image

The black cat was my favorite, although it was also one of the hardest because of its strong black color, I had to resort to Chinese ink for its fur.

I think this is fine for a post. I already have 3 pages and if I continue with another paragraph I would have enough to fill 2 more 😂. Each painting took me more or less a day to do ... Yes ... I must learn to work much faster, and I am doing it.

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