What started as living room stories became a family passion project.
This is my first large scale project with a self-guided process. The goal of the publication was to use visual storytelling to pass on the story of my grandfather, who I call Yeh Yeh, including his struggles growing up and the lessons he shared with me to children and their families.
As of today, the book has sold over 270 copies on Amazon.
Procreate
Inspiration and Research
Not only did I talk with Yeh Yeh to learn more about his story and look at old family photos for reference, but I also looked into what Hong Kong, Macau, and San Francisco looked like during the times Yeh Yeh lived in them.
Front Cover Drafts
Yeh Yeh and I had paper airplane flying contests growing up, so I wanted to display paper planes as a personal touch to allude to our family story. As the book’s co-writer, my dad also wanted to include the ship Yeh Yeh escaped from Hong Kong on the cover, which was a challenge to figure out how to incorporate into an overall cohesive, visually appealing, and engaging front cover composition.
Storyboards
The storyboard stage of making a book allowed me to make a rough blueprint of what the overall book would look like and how the pages would look with each other in spreads. I would refer back to the notes made in the process of planning pages while editing the storyboards and working on the final illustrations. Here you can also see old pages that were edited out due to the page limit.
Illustrations
The process of illustrating the book was composed of stages: sketching, line art, base colors, shading and lighting, then finally any additional rendering. There were various decisions made in the final illustrations to support the overall tone of the book, like the less saturated colors in the story section as opposed to the lessons section. My goal was to make the illustrations visually engaging for kids while maintaining the appropriate tone of the content on a given page, and also make the content interesting for parents/other adults.
Want to hear Yeh Yeh’s story?
Reviews
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"As a parent, teacher and social justice activist, I highly recommend this book to people of all ages but particularly to children in elementary school. So many lessons that touch on complex inequalities and perseverance are provided in such a simple and accessible way. If you still have hope for the next generation, share this book far and wide."
Katie Bravante
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"This is a well written and beautifully illustrated story about resilience and growth in the face of extreme adversity. I am a clinical psychologist who works with children and families in a community setting. This book is now my go-to in helping to drive home important lessons. I highly recommend this book!"
Kristopher I Stevens
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"As an immigrant chasing the American dream it's always fascinating to learn from other's experience. Although the experiences of the grandfather are compressed in this book it is still relevant for my journey even considering that I'm from a completely different culture. Thank you for sharing and I hope more people can benefit from this book!"
Bamlak Haile