Cory Q. Tan's Blog

One day, I was sitting in a food court having my lunch, and as usual, I was thinking about my books - why are they not selling, how to make them sell, or more specifically, how to make more kids like them. Suddenly, a thought just came to my mind. So far I have been producing books inspired by or based on different members of my family- my two sons, my wife, and most recently, myself (the Dad in 'A Family Dinner'). Suddenly, I began to question: why would children be interested in a book about a mother or a father, of all things! So I came to the realization that who you cast as the main character in the book holds the paramount importance on whether the book would appeal to kids at all. This may be common knowledge to most writers, but believe it or not, it was something that has never occurred to me, until that day.
When I look back at all the books I have written so far, only 'Theodore the Unfortunate Bear' seemed to come closest to the idea of a book that puts the child in the center of all the action. Hence, I decided that my next book should be a Theodore book.
Why is there a villain in this new book? Sorry to say, as this may sound very layman to you, the idea came to me when me and my boys were watching Marvel-Infinity War and End-Game. We were discussing why these two movies were amongst the greatest superhero movies ever made: Was it because of the heroes? No, it cannot be as they were practically the same heroes from the very first Avenger movies, no change at all... It was the villain Thanos. It was he who made these two movies so special and so great. He was arguably the most terrible villain that existed- cruel, ruthless, yet incredibly strong and irresistibly charismatic! Without this bad guy, these two movies would be nothing and all the heroes would be nothing. In fact, we came to the conclusion that the greatness of a superhero movie depended on how bad or evil the villain was. That's why I decided to add a villain in the story, though this may also be the last time I do so (as it is really not my style).
At first, I only had a very vague image of what this villain would look like. Like Enid Blyton once said, she wrote from her sub-conscious. So I realized that many of my ideas also came from my sub-conscious- not that I'm trying to draw a parallel between the great Enid Blyton and myself, but I often realized where my ideas came from long after they were put to fruition. For example, this particular story surfaced in my mind as soon as I decided to do a Theodore story with a villain inside. And it was after a few weeks of drafting and preparation that I realized where the idea came from. So here's how it goes.
Once, I heard from my boys, who heard from my Mum (their grandmother) relay a story told to her b one of her friends. So we do not know if it's true, but it was a very compelling story anyhow. The story goes that one day, a mother brought her two boys to Disneyland (Hong Kong I supposed). Either she was too engrossed in buying something or she went into a shop. Anyway, by the time she realized it, one of her sons had gone missing! She immediately plunged into a frenzied panic and her mind just went blank. It was at this moment, a passerby (kind, harmless and educated looking woman- the kind whom you think you can trust) came by and offered her assistance. She kindly offered to look after this mother's other son so that she can be relieved of her duty and go look for the missing one. The distressed mother immediately took up the offer and went to search frantically for her missing son in the huge amusement park. Of course, her hunt was fruitless (of course), and she decided to come back for her only son left. Guess what? She lost two sons in a day.
I'm not sure if this story was true or made up. If it was made up, I think it was very well made-up indeed, and served as a very good caution to parents like myself who can sometimes be carried away when bringing our kids out. And after hearing about horrific stories of human trafficking, both in the news as well as on TV, this amusement park story left a deep and lasting impact on me... On my sub-conscious I supposed, and it resurfaced immediately when I needed a story about a villain.
So the villain in my story was this human trafficker/kidnapper who had passed off as a kind, trustworthy, normal looking lady. You can never judge a book by its cover. And nowadays, most human traffickers make use of kind, motherly-looking ladies to lure young children or unsuspecting girls into their traps. As soon as the trust is gained, the fangs would come out.
It took me a while to visualize how this villain would look like. I wouldn't think that that final product was successful but at least, she looked a little 'special', with the peacock feathered hat and magician outfit. I had drawn inspiration from the Witch of the Waste and her face-less attendants in Miyasaki's timeless classic 'Howl's Moving Castle', but decided in the end to give her a pretty face as a faceless woman may give young children nightmares. In the ending battle scenes, I wanted to create an effect where destruction takes place beautifully, so I took reference from the graceful, twisting movements of Flamenco dancers and enhanced the scene using marbling effects in the background. For the final scene where the 'witch' dissipated, I actually had to turn to the wonderfully talented Italian sculptor Bellini's 'Rape of Persephone' for help. Do check out the works of this amazing genius! Thanks Bellini!
As I've mentioned in my previous blogs, I'm an Art History enthusiast and I enjoy using my works to transmit art history lessons when the opportunity comes. Works by the masters also provide me with lots of inspiration when composing my own works.
One of the artists that I'm paying homage to, in particular, is none other than my teacher and benefactor- the late Bartolomeu cid dos Santos. I met Barto (as he was affectionately known as) when I studied in the Slade School of Fine Art from 1993-1997. As I was a BA student (and printmaking was only offered to students in the MA course), I decided to approach Barto (who was the head of the printmaking department) to be given a chance to take up printmaking as my major. Barto was a very big man who usually appeared very stern (though he was actually quite the opposite if you know him well), it was nerve-racking trying to ask a favour from him. Amazingly, he just said 'ok'! Just like that, and I managed to spend 3 wonderful years in the MA department even though I was a BA student- Not without drawing antagonistic stares from many MA students (and tutors!) who felt that I'm taking up precious space in that already crammed studio. But Barto was also there to defend. His occasional praises for my work was enough to silence everyone in the studio- suggesting that I made the mark to stay there. I was fortunate to be under his tutelage during my university study there as he happened to retire the same year when I graduated. Sadly, when he retired, everything went with him- from the ornate printing presses to the centuries-old craftsmanship, and of course the family-like culture.
Anyway, Barto passed away in 2007. I was saddened to hear about his passing but I was already thousands of miles away back in my hometown. He was a fantastic print-maker during his time, who made a lot of histories and a lot of friends. Some of his most prominent works included a series of etchings on 'labyrinths'. And during my time in the Slade, Barto was coming up with a new variation based on the Portugese Man-of-war every other week. This was not a warship but a jellyfish. I'm not sure what was the cultural significance of this creature to him but it certainly gave Barto the opportunity to display his virtuosity on the copper plate. Perhaps one day I may find a suitable idea to connect with his 'jellyfish' works, but in my latest Theodore book, I wanted to pay homage to his 'labyrinth' series. (Of course, I can never come close to the mastery of his original series.)
The other works that I made reference to in this book included the surrealist landscapes by Salvador Dali, in particular the haunting 'Suburb of a Paranoiac Critical Town' (1936)- one of my favourite works ever. As a young art student, this painting left a very deep impression in me as it was like a scene coming straight out of a horror movie- The lady in the centre holding up a bunch of grapes appeared to have totally lost her mind and was inviting you to enter her crazy world. Other than her, the painting was dominated by emptiness that was yet laden with so much presence and weight. This work, in my opinion, is one of the most convincing and mesmerizing dream-scapes in Surrealism.
The upside-down labyrinth scene and the hall of mirrors, were not so much inspired by art history then by popular culture. The former was based on my memory of the 1986 Jim Henson film 'Labyrinth' starring David Bowie as the Goblin King and Jennifer Connelly as the sweet 15-year old Sarah seeking to rescue her baby brother. I fondly remember the scene where she tried desperately to reach her baby brother, who would be crawling away from her in all the impossible angles (upside-down, side-ways etc) without falling off. This scene was of course, in turn inspired by M.C. Escher's famous works on impossible spaces like 'Relativity', 'Concave and Convex', 'House of Stairs' etc.
The inspiration for the hall of mirrors was much more recent, 2016 in fact. As you know by now, I'm a Marvel movie fan, and the 2016 movie 'Dr Strange' just blew my mind away with its special effects which were simply so mesmerizing and beautiful. I watched this movie again and again and would not hesitate to call it a work of art- in motion! As a fan of tessellations and repeated patterns, you can understand why I like this movie so much. The geniuses who made this movie were able to create the most stunningly beautiful kaleidoscopic patterns out of everyday, ordinary scenes. My version is a far cry from the world of reflections in the movie, though. I'm still trying.
Lastly, I would like to touch a little on the art in this book. If you are familiar with my earlier works, this work is considered a breakthrough for me as I am finally venturing to try out other perspectives and angles instead of always the frontal view. When I started off doing children's picture books, my role model (for the art) was Picasso's works from his Rose period, in particular the work 'Parade'. Following the great Spanish master, I had tried to think of my frames as a 'stage' where I would 'arrange' my characters. The space would be shallow and there will be a parquet floor, and preferable a door somewhere where the characters can go 'backstage'. This approach is very visible in my first two books- 'A Very Special Cat' and 'A Hero's Cape'. So along the way, I'm not sure why, I feel that more 'drama' is needed, and this frontal type of composition can no longer serve me sufficiently. Hence I tried adopting a more 'cinematic' approach in my compositions, trying to capture my main characters from unusual angles suited to that 'moment'. I have also started to use a lot of flares, lighting and splatters to create even more drama and movement, to the point that I feel that perhaps I'm overdoing it.
Nevertheless, as an artist, I don't believe in staying stagnant. And forcing myself to try new styles is the best way to grow. And in the process of trying, mistakes will guide you to the next level of mastery. So I'm quite glad that I have abandoned the old frontal approach and moved on to introduce more variety in my composition, though in my next work, I will no doubt be dialing back on all these special effects and aim towards something a bit more simple and 'zen'.
If you have read so far, I really must thank you for your patience and your interest in my work. I try to write a blog for each of my work when I complete them as a record of the creative and thinking process that went behind it and also as a way of documenting my growth and development, which I can slowly reminisce at the age of 80.

With this post, I have finally caught up with up all my works as I aim to write a log to capture the creative process and thinking behind each of my work. I aim to make these logs as detailed and accurate as possible, as they are meant for my 80-year old self and all my readers!
When I first made the decision to become a children’s book author, slightly over two years ago, I had no idea what I should write about, what story I could tell, what pictures I could draw, or even what kind of style I could adopt. My mind was totally blank.
Finally, after much struggle, I managed to conceive an idea of a story to celebrate the sacred unit of the 'family', and something about 'food' to go along. So came along my first book, which was created completely using traditional media like sketchbooks, pencil and eraser, water-colour paper, and some photocopying and tracing. It was a grueling process that took me a very long time to complete- half a year if I remember correctly. I even sent the work (sometime in Sep 2017) for a competition, even when it was half finished- in Portugal! Of course I didn’t win anything! My book wasn’t even mentioned in the final results. How sad!
The story was about a boy who had to run errands for his mum as she had run out of eggs, which she needed to cook dinner. Along the way, other things happened. The story ended with Dad coming home and acknowledging his son’s contribution to the family dinner, a symbol that each member of the family plays a part in making things work.
When it was finally completed in December 2017, I tried to submit the book to several publishers (not a single one replied by the way, and one even took the trouble to send me two rejection emails!) As it was done in the traditional medium of water colour, I found it hard to do a proper submission as I had no proper equipment that would eliminate the reflections from my photos., which came out distorted too! No wonder no publisher would even consider it!
At that time, I also had the concept that all children’s books should be written in rhymes. And I’m absolutely hopeless with that! In the end, I had to enlist the help of my elder boy (who happened to be the protagonist in the story) to help me with the phrasing. All these challenges added up and it all seemed so bleak that I think my writing career would never take off!
I knew that I had to go ‘digital’ for it to work. So I took out a very old iPad (generation 2) which was forgotten in the wardrobe for the longest time. Then I bought a very cheap touch-screen stylus and started. The rest was history. The stylus was horrible and fortunately I broke a few by dropping them on the ground, and each time I destroyed one, I managed to find a better one, until I finally settled on the Apple Pencil- which is unrivaled!
After this initial failure, I went on a short holiday to a nearby country with my family, it was a depressing trip that I would never forget. During the trip, however, my younger son drew a childish picture of a Pokémon (a 'Raichu' if you know what I’m talking about). This picture was so spontaneous and lively that it inspired me to pick up my pen again (this time a stylus!) and my end creation was none other than the ‘Luminous Cat’. So that was how it all started.
Sorry for the long background, but this was exactly the backdrop for the creation of my latest work ‘A Family Dinner’- exactly the same name as my first ever, unpublished work. The name was in fact given by my wife, who’s really good with coming up with names! So in fact, everyone in the family contributed to my book- my elder boy helped with the ‘rhymes’, my wife helped with the title, and my younger boy encouraged me and kept me company throughout.
After releasing 4 books, I felt that it’s time and I'm ready to go full circle and revisit my first unsuccessful attempt. Hence in a way, my fifth book could be considered the finished product of my first book.
Like how ‘Theodore’ was inspired by the image of a random piece of cloth draped over an arm chair, ‘A Family Dinner’ took its inspiration from the scene in ‘Theodore’ where the bear climbed up the open fridge looking for candies (which happened to be one of my favourite frames in that book). Coincidentally, in the first unpublished ‘A Family Dinner’, there was also such a scene.
And since all the members of the family have had their outings in one of my books (my wife in ‘A Dream’, my elder boy in ‘A Hero’s Cape ‘, and my younger boy in ‘A Very Special Cat’), I thought it’s time for the ‘Dad’ to make his appearance.
I had always wanted to write a story about an ordinary outing gone completely wrong, but with all ending well eventually. And I wanted to show, through a very simple and mundane thing like carrots, the immense and limitless love the Dad had for his family, such that he would never flinch from facing dangers (the wolf) or unpleasant tasks (the worm) to make happiness possible for his family. The trials and tribulations he encountered were analogies for the hard work and unpleasant experiences all parents encounter at work, in order to put food on the table: Reprimands from bosses, difficult and demanding customers, and of course long, never ending meetings. All for the sake of the family! Such is the noble love of parents.
And as parent/s go away to work in the morning and come back only in the evening, most of the time their hardship goes unnoticed, very much like what happened in this story. I know of many parents who even had to go overseas or a very far away and unknown place to work for many years, just to send money home to their families, such as foreign domestic workers and construction workers. So this story is really a tribute to the boundless love of all parents, be it the Mum or the Dad, or both, who have to work hard to bring home the dough.
Lastly, I’d like to bring to your attention a new device I've used in this book, which is the 'adaption' of a masterpiece. If you are familiar with the art of the Early Renaissance, you may have come across the work of Peter Bruegel the Elder, a marvelous artist of Dutch/Flemish origins. His works were similar in many ways to the older and more famous Hieronymus Bosch (who painted haunting scenes of hell and fantastic magical gardens) but I’m more fond of the younger artist’s works which was more grounded in reality. Being less far fetched and out of this world, Bruegel's works in fact become more believable than Bosch’s, as you can actually imagine such scenes happening in your backyard!
One of my favorite work of Bruegel was none other than the woodcut print ‘Big Fish Eat Small Fish’ (do check it out!). I’m a huge fan of art history, having taught this subject in school for many years, and I wanted to make use of my work, where possible, to educate and induct young readers into the world of art history. (I’ve even thought of starting a page on my website dedicated to the teaching of Art History, but that would have to wait.) So I suppose you will have no difficulty in guessing which frame in this book that made reference to Bruegel’s print. In my future works, I hope to continue to be able to make references to important art works or artists that I like, and hopefully use my work as a medium to spread the love of art history to young readers around the world.
Overall, this book took me a very long time to complete- almost 3 whole months! It was mostly due to the fact that there were many nature scenes in this work, and I had to draw every leaf and blade of grass, one by one- even the overlapping of leaves and grass was carefully captured. The colouring, too, took me a very long time, as you may have known by now that colour is my greatest enemy! I am conscious that I still have a very long way to go to really master my craft, and this can only come with practice.
So, with that, I'm signing off for now as I'd soon be going into hibernation mode as I plunge into my next work.
Thank you for reading!

After getting the long overdue blog for ‘A Dream’ off my chest, as I’ve put it off for almost a year, writing the diary for the creation of ‘Theodore the Unfortunate Bear’ was so much easier. It was, after all, more recent memory.
Technically speaking, ‘Theodore’ was not my fourth, but my fifth. The book that came between ‘A Dream’ and ‘Theodore’ was aborted just 2 weeks before it was meant to be published. To this day, it still remains unpublished. Let’s take a short detour to talk a bit about that unfortunate book.
As I’ve mentioned in my previous blogs, the order of tackling the foreground or the background first has remained an unresolved issue for me. 3 months through the production of ‘A Dream’, I had the opportunity of a 2-week window in my work schedule that I could use to concentrate on producing a new book. Hence I issued myself a challenge to see if I was able to complete the skeleton of a new book within just 2 weeks, as the speed of producing a book is a major priority for me. I happened to be back from a holiday to a more rural country and had taken numerous pictures of houses and landscapes which I thought could serve as the backgrounds for a book. Yes, so I decided to work on the background first for this new book, unlike what I’ve done for ‘A Dream’, which was a mixture of foregrounds and backgrounds.
Anyway, that wasn’t the reason for the premature death of that book. Just 2 weeks before I was about to complete the book, with only the colouring stage left, I received a very poor review of one of my earlier books. The impact of that harsh and rather unkind review was great, and made me lose all confidence in my work.
Fortunately I managed to publish ‘A Dream’ before that devastating review.
Confusing huh? Anyway, chronologically, I was three-quarters way through ‘A Dream’ sometime in early December 2018, before I decided to shelve it and work on this 'unpublished' work instead, but then I paused this work again half way to return and complete ‘A Dream’, as it was near completion anyway. After ‘A Dream’ was published in January 2019, I returned to work on this 'unpublished' work until sometime in late March, when I decided to abandon it after reading the bad review. Hope this is clearer now.
So this was when ’Theodore’ came about. In fact, maybe I have that bad review to thank, as it made me stop and rethink about my entire creative process. I decided to look beyond my immediate surrounding or my existing processes for inspiration for a new story. In fact, I decided to activate my subconscious a bit more in my creative process.
How did this work? I simply decided to look at random pictures or photos and see if they trigger any ideas in my mind. Sometimes I would also combine two or more unrelated images and force fit them together to see if a new idea would emerge, very much like how the Surrealists work.
But ‘Theodore’ came much much more easily. One day, I was looking at a random picture of a blue armchair with some laundry draped carelessly over the arm-rest. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration came and the drapery was suddenly transformed into a teddy bear that was discarded and left there on its own, totally forgotten.
And the strange thing that happened after that was, the rest of the frames kept coming so easily and voluntarily, one after another. I started to imagine that this was a very high class, self-proclaimed refined individual who was of a great substance, but cursed with bad luck. Bad luck caused him to end up in a middle-lower class family not befitting it’s status, and how he wished he was born in a better family.
Perhaps all these came from my subconscious, for I was also guilty of such thinking when I was younger, when I used to harbour feelings of envy when I see my friends having more ‘sophisticated’ and ‘educated’ parents. It wasn’t until I was older that I begun to appreciate my own parents and siblings.
So, to a certain extent, Theodore is a portrait of my younger, angsty and unappreciative self. I’m sure there are many ‘Theodore’s out there- young, angsty teens who always feel that they deserved better and despise those who truly care for them. Yet, at the end of the day, it is always those who are closest- their parents, siblings, who would come to their rescue when they are in trouble, as represented by the twins and the dog.
Through this book, I was also trying to convey the idea of what it means to be a family: the fact that we are all imperfect individuals who have our ups and downs create the reason for this entity known as the 'family’. A family is a unit comprising a few imperfect individuals bound together by blood relations or other connections, and they go through life helping and supporting one another through the good and the bad times. Though individually, all the characters in the story were full of flaws, when they started to accept one another as ‘part of the family’, fully and unconditionally, everything became so beautiful and perfect. This is a truth that sadly, a lot of families do not seem to realise- families come together not because they are perfect people, but because they are imperfect individuals.
The characters in this book, too, came from my sub-conscious. The father was obviously a reference to myself, the mother an image of my wife during her more irritable moments. The little baby Brian resembles my younger son a lot, while his sister Annabelle was based on a very beautiful and gentle colleague of mine when I used to teach in a school.
Overall, ‘Theodore’ was the book that took me the shortest time to finish. While ‘A Dream’ took me almost 4 months, ‘Theodore’ took me only 40 days!
The strange thing was, just 2 days BEFORE ‘Theodore’ was due to be released, I received another very negative review for another book. Fortunately, this time I didn’t give up.

Thank you for reading.

I finally got down to writing a blog for this book, almost 11 months since I started working on it in 2018. I must have greater discipline in writing a blog for each of my works as soon as it is completed, as it’s obvious that the longer it is, the less we remember. And I do want to make it a point to record down the thinking and creative processes that go behind each of my work, not for anyone else but at least for myself to read when I’m 80 years old, if I’m lucky enough to live to that age.
Anyway, back to the book. ‘A Dream’ was the first book I have created using the new iPad that I have bought, which of course is now 1 year old. And with it, I was able to tap on the amazing abilities of the Procreate software and the miraculous Apple Pencil, which works almost as well, and in some cases, even better than the actual drawing materials themselves. I often feel fortunate to be born in this day and age which offers us two amazing and incredible tools the world has never seen before.
The first is Direct Indie Publishing: the internet has enabled any writer to reach out to his audience without the approval or censorship of a traditional publisher. As a self-published writer, although I may not have the publicity and promotion machinery afforded to writers backed by established publishing houses, I enjoy a pure, unblocked relationship with my readers, unspoiled by an irrelevant third party known as the publisher. It will be a long way for me to become a successful and selling author, but I’m enjoying every bit of the journey- I’m still dreaming!
The second incredible tool that would make any of the children’s book illustrators of the past green with envy would be technological advances in electronic drawing media that made it possible for you to carry around your canvas, easel, pencils, brushes, paints and mixing medium (be it water or oil) in a small 9 inch size rectangle known as the iPad! This amazing device has made it possible, at least for me, to create anywhere and anytime I want, in bed, at the Coffeeshop, or in the park. It has greatly sped up the process of creating a book, shortening the entire process tremendously from start to finish. When I got my new iPad and downloaded the Procreate app, I felt so liberated and empowered as I no longer have to grapple with 5 miserable layers when I was using Adobe Sketch, and I could finally place my hand on the iPad! Sounds like the crazy rambling of a mad man? No, all these means greater productivity and consistency to me as an illustrator, something I’m still striving to enhance every day, to this day.
When I looked back at the initial drawings I did with Procreate, I must say the quality was nothing short of embarrassing. It took me a very long time to even decide on a ‘pen’ I like. After all, it’s like a cave man who has just discovered fire. Hundreds of thousands of strokes later, I can safely say that I’m way more confident today in using this virtual drawing tool than a year before, although there is still a very long way to go to achieve mastery!
Like my previous book ‘A Hero’s Cape’, I also had a hard time grappling with the issue of ‘foreground’ and ‘background’. Even today, I’m still unsure if I should start with the foreground or start with the background. This is an issue that I’d probably visit again and again. Strange huh?
For ‘A Dream’, there were some frames which came to my mind so easily as a complete whole, e.g. the scene of the giant Baby getting lost in the city, the scene of the nursery, the scene of the Mother wondering in the forest, the scene of Mum and Giant Baby sharing a bed, and to some extent, the scene of the Father balancing the Giant Baby on the staircase. For the rest, I mostly had the foreground in my mind and did not know what to do with the background. So in some sense, the foreground characters were all conceptualised and realised first, and the backgrounds were somewhat after-thoughts and patch-work to complete the pictures. The pieces I struggled with the most were the scenes of Giant Baby toppling Mr Smith’s flower pots, as well as the very first scene, which I had to redraw many times.
I suppose, when I look at my experience so far, the best frames seem to be the ones that come to me as complete wholes, not in partial fragments as either the foreground or background. And this should be the direction for my future compositions- to strive to conceptualise frames as ‘singular’ entities instead of ‘half’ entities. Of course, I also struggled with the colour, for colour is my greatest enemy, if you haven’t yet known.
So much for the technologies and the creative processes, now over to the story.
In my first book, the protagonist was none other than my younger son, who was seven at the time the book was composed. The second book, on the other hand, was inspired by my older son (who’s turning 13 today!) who was playing with his bath towel, using it as a cape. So naturally I thought, the next book should perhaps ‘honour’ another family member- to complete the ‘cycle’, so to speak. So I decided to do something about my Wife.
If you know my Wife personally, you would agree with me that the Mother in ‘A Dream’ is a life like portrait of my Wife. She is testament to the amazing transformation motherhood brings to women. I’m often stunned by the incredible amount of strength, courage, focus, and dedication mothers have towards their children. I have witnessed it first hand for myself when, during a holiday gone wrong, my Wife had fallen into a pothole in the ground during a pictch black night, while carrying my then one year old son in her arms. She emerged from the pothole with a deep cut on her knee (blood was flowing non-stop down her leg), while my baby boy was totally unscathed. Yet this amazing woman seemed to feel no pain at all! She had lifted my son up in the critical moment to prevent him from getting injured, with herself incurring such a bad injury.
It is this kind of absolute dedication (to the point of obsession for her child’s wellbeing) that I was trying to portray in this book. A parent, especially the Mother, will worry about her child until the day she enters her grave. Yet, the best way to parenting, I feel, is to always take things one at a time, one day at a time, and just to enjoy and accept things as they are, as this is always the best way to enjoy the each and every wonderful day that our children bring to our lives, for they are the best gifts that one can ever have in this life.
I hope you like this book, thank you for reading!

As they always say, in writing a book, the hardest part was the beginning. For me, I find that many parts are difficult. For example, I always wondered if I should start with the story line or the moral (message of the story- I cannot imagine a children's book without a underlying message), or should I start with the pictures and let the pictures come together as a story, like some very talented children's book authors do. This approach, I think, is a very powerful creative process taught in the art schools too- to just allow any random imagery lead you to unexpected places. I also wondered If I should start with the beginning of the story or the end. This may sound very strange to you but if you read my previous post, I mentioned that for 'A Very Special Cat', my very first book, I was very clear how the book would start and end- both images of a boy reading a book and the Giant Kitty coming to look for her child, both came to me simultaneously. And then I was stuck with how to join the head to the tail, for months.... If I remember correctly, I was stuck for 4 months, until I decided to abandon the book as I did not know how to complete it.

During these 4 months I decided to move on to something different, maybe start a new book and hopefully this time I won't get stuck. So 'A Hero's Cape', my second book, was actually composed at the same time as 'A Very Special Cat'. It was towards the end of writing/drawing 'A Hero's Cape' that an inspiration came to me on how I should complete 'A Very Special Cat'. I decided to complete that one first before going back to 'A Hero's Cape'. After all, that was supposed to be the order. This is why the two books were only published a month apart.

For 'A Hero's Cape', I also had somewhat a beginning and an end in mind, and again the middle was missing. The story was inspired by my then 11 year old son playing with his towel. He was posing with his towel just before going for his shower and I thought that looked very cute. As the first book's central character was based on my younger boy, I decided that I should dedicate this next book to my older boy, just to be fair.

The first image I had in my mind was the cape flying out of the window. And I did a few versions before the final one. It was difficult, as I mentioned before, as my first two books were done using a very outdated iPad with a not so fantastic drawing software with only 5 layers. I also had the images of the younger brother and him looking at an injured bird pondering what to do with it, as well as the final scene when all the different people came to thank him. For the rest of the book, I had no idea how to piece together.

I guess they were right that the subconscious mind is more powerful than the conscious mind, for the rest of the images for the book came to me at moments when I least expected them, e.g. when I was washing my hands in the toilet etc.

You must be wondering why a children's book author kept talking about images and nothing about the words. For me, 90% of my time in composing a book went into the pictures. For 'A Hero's Cape', it took me about 3-4 months just to draw the pictures, and only 1-2 days for the words. This is not because I paid less attention to the writing, but because the writing was constantly forming in my mind as I was rushing the drawings. When all the drawings were done, I only needed a day or two just to 'pour out' all the words that were already in my mind.

However, for 'A Hero's Cape', the greatest challenge that I faced was not the story line, as the story line would always miraculously come to you at moments when you least expected it, i.e. via the subconscious. You just need to keep it in your mind day and night... For this book, my greatest challenge was actually drawing the background.

Should the foreground (the characters) come first or should the background be composed first? This was my struggle. I didn't seem to have much of this problem in 'A Very Special Cat' as the backgrounds were largely the same for almost every frame. Anyway, in the end, since I had no idea what to draw for the background, I just went ahead to compose all the foreground actions first. Hence, in essence, 'A Hero's Cape' was done in two parts- all the characters were drawn first before I worked on the background. This approach wasn't ideal as it was hard to find the right background with the 'correct' perspective for each frame.

Well, the struggle with getting the background right remained till the last frame. And I haven't even begun to talk about my struggle with colours- my biggest enemy till this day! Colouring is definitely not my forte as my training was in B&W printmaking. Till this day, I've yet to find a teacher who would teach me how to formulate colour schemes correctly. I guess it will forever be a trial-and-error process for me. Anyway, for 'A Hero's Cape', for each frame I had to look for a suitable picture from elsewhere (could be a painting, or a comic strip, or a book cover) with a similar tone and feel, and take reference from its colour scheme.

Some last words for 'A Hero's Cape'. It was meant to be a book with a lot of action and adventure, as, taking advice from my younger son (then only turning 7 then), children's books should be expressive and full of action and excitement. I thought that was very good advice, and to this day, I still try to make that happen in all my books.

I've never written a blog, I don't know how to write a blog, and I have a phobia for creating one, for various reasons....

First, I have many doubts and worries about how to create a blog. I worry about how the text will turn out in the end, how it will look on the web page, yes- the formatting! I wonder if I could add an image, or should I? I wonder if I'm allowed to edit what I wrote after posting it. I worry if I would not like what I wrote or changed my mind about something, many years later. Lastly, I also wonder if anyone would care to read it!

But alas, for all the doubts and worries, I guess I should pen down all the ideas, thoughts and the inspirations that went into every book that I wrote. I should also record the creation process because the process and context of creating every book is so different and yet so interesting. This is so that I can read it for myself many many years later when I become old. I could then read about what I wrote today when I was much younger, and marvel at how juvenile or ridiculous my works were, or how amazing and fascinating my ideas were at that time. I should also write for the friends and readers who gave me so much support and encouragement, so that they could understand what went behind the scenes in the creation of these works. It is always not the same when you read about the author's thoughts and intentions when he created a piece of work. It gives an added dimension in the appreciation of the piece.

So here it goes, my very first blog post, which of course would be about my very first book- 'A Very Special Cat'.

Thank you for reading.

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A Very Special Cat

'A Very Special Cat'- A Very Special Book:

Very much like the cat in the story (you will understand what I mean), this book is very special to me as it was my very first published book (the second book I've written to be exact as the first one never even got past the publishers... a little about this another time). Fortunately, thanks to KDP, I was able to put this book out into the world.

The story, like all my stories, was inspired by people around me, primarily my family, which consists of my wife and 2 boys: a teenager-to-be and a cute little one (they look just like the boys drawn in my stories). Once, for a period of time, the conversation topic between the two boys revolved around nothing but Pokemon, and I kept hearing them talk about catching 'Shinies'. I've never seen a 'Shiny' Pokemon and had no idea what it looked like. (I got to see one much later after I finished my book and it was far from what I imagined it to be!)

But according to the two experts, 'Shinies' are extremely rare and precious, and you need to be extremely lucky just to get the chance to see one, let alone catch one. So this gave rise to my idea of a shiny and rare animal, but I did not want to use the term 'shiny', hence I settled on the word 'luminous' instead. Why a cat? I have no idea, Cats are enigmatic creatures and though I don't personally keep one, I always marvel at their stealth, grace and beauty. They have an air of aloofness, indifference and steadfastness to freedom which draws me to them!

So there I had my idea of a 'Luminous Cat' which was the basis for the story. A flash of inspiration also gave me the ending to the story- somehow the 'ending' has always been there. But I did not know how to join the beginning to the end: how the search for the precious cat unfolded and how the various characters in the family reacted to the boy's 'find'. It took me almost half a year to get this simple book out, with a lot of stops in between abandoning the project, picking it again and then abandoning it again. (You must be wondering why such a simple book could have taken so long to make). Guess this was the reason why this book appeared so bumpy and did not flow as well as (I guess) my other books.

Anyway, this book, done using Adobe Sketch (with only 5 layers!) on a very old Generation 2 iPad, is by no means my best (in my opinion), but it's certainly 'A Very Special Book' to me.

I hope you like it!