The Magic Bean - Childrens book

This book is dedicated to my nephew, Altair.

When he was learning to talk, I often read books with him. He loved the game "What's this?" and "What's that?". When he knew the answer, he would always confidently say what it was. But when I pointed to a crab, he just tilted his head questioningly. So I told him, "It's a crab." And that started a 2-year-old boy's unhinged obsession with this creature. He became its number one fan.

Since he loved it when his parents or I read to him, I had an idea to find a book with a crab as the main character, but I couldn't find any. And then I thought that I could create it on my own. It was a pleasant challenge for me, I must say. This is how "The Magic Bean" was created, and it became his favorite bedtime book that he's been reading every night for six months now.

Oh, and the book's name is not random. Beanie is what we used to call my nephew when he was in his mommy's tummy.

This book was fully illustrated in Procreate with an Apple Pencil. To create a soft, warm feel for the story, all the illustrations were made without outlines, using just a few simple brushes for shapes and gentle textures.

I had a rough time creating the characters before starting the main illustrations. As you can see, these sketches are unfinished—they are quite raw and just weren't the style of art I wanted for this book. For me, the best decision was to just dive into the middle, take the most interesting character (for me, that was Mellowsaurus), and start designing right there. And it worked out perfectly! Once the vision clicked, everything else became so much easier to create.

I used a 3D app to help me with perspective and proportions. I got a little carried away with it, but because I made the 3D models so accurate, the actual illustrations were so much easier to draw!

When I contacted the printing house to print my book, they required a minimum of 50 pages for a hardcover edition. So, I had to expand the book from 30 pages to 50. It actually turned out for the better — because of this, I was able to add a world map, a bestiary, and a "spot the difference" game!

Originally, I wrote this story in Russian because my whole family speaks it. However, for this project, I translated it into English so more people could understand what’s going on. Basically, this story contains educational aspects as well as entertaining art. Based on observations I made while analyzing what exactly my nephew enjoys when we read together, I realized that he isn't just into the text itself. He loves it when I describe what’s happening on the page, when I imagine things with him, or when we read the emotions the characters are experiencing. Taking this into account, I tried to create engaging situations and an interesting setting. That way, besides learning the alphabet or counting, he could simply enjoy the storytelling.

I feel like this course gave me the start I was looking for. Before, I didn't understand where to begin, what to do, or how it all worked. But since I started, I have just been drawing every day. Actually, I finished this book and printed it six months ago, but the inspiration to do the final project came just now. Since then, my nephew, who is almost 2.8 years old, by the way, has read my book every bedtime. My friend's 4-year-old son also really enjoys it, and all the relatives I gifted the book to love it very much, too.

This is it, Thank you :)