Character Building

One of my favorite things to do as an Illustrator to to create characters. I mean characters that speak to the readers of the books I illustrate or write. Creating there personalites through playing with clothes and hair and all of it brings me so much joy! I had the pleasure of teaching a class over at Storytelleracademy.com with my good friend and brother Arree Chung. Good picture books start with great characters. My last post I shared about a new character named," Clairty". I put these characters in my sketchbooks and they live there for a time. Sometime I actually forget them until I share my sketchbook with my followers here and on Instagram and an Editor reaches out to me and ask me about it!

Creating characters is like having a baby without the pain and stuff. It's birthed from the end of my pencil and then I have to name it and care for it and bring it to life and then hopefully share it with the right people. You might ask," Is creating a character hard?" Sometimes is hard if you make it hard. Just look around you. See how people dress and carry themselves. Go through your family photos and see who pops out at you. There are character waiting to be birthed by YOU. I hope to share the process of how I bring a character to life here very soon. Until then, Have a great day by choice.