Illustrating my second kids book – Super Scout

I’m excited to announce that the second kids book that I have illustrated is now out in the world. Super Scout is the second kids book that I have illustrated for YouTubers Elijah and Crumpet who are not only raising Down syndrome awareness through their YouTube channel but now with their kids books.

The challenges where still there with Super Scout the second book even though l learnt so much from the illustration of the first book Motivate Man.

One thing thing you can always say is the time will never be right. The first book was illustrated mostly in my car in between lawn mowing jobs. And Super Scout was illustrated in a half constructed bus conversion worksite after getting my kids to bed. I had so many opportunities, so many excuses available to me to not illustrate these books, but I powered through the difficulties because deep down I knew that the time would never be right.

One of the main things that kept me going was having fantastic people to work for, that encouraged me and motivated me when times were tough. Also the more you work on a project the easier it gets in many ways.

Firstly by creating a large body of work to look back on, the more you feel motivated to keep the project moving.

Secondly by showing up regularly on livestreams motivated me to keep illustrating the book. Talking with both Rob, Elijah and others on the livestream was very motivating and also helpful because we managed to dodge many future edits by editing the book as we went.

Another benefit of having all the illustrations from my previous book was I was able to borrow from them to help speed up the process on the second book.

So after many late nights it’s finally finished and I’m very pleased with how it turned out. It’s certainly great to have a second book under my belt just to prove to myself that I’m capable of illustrating more than just one book. And I’ve almost finished the drawings for my third book ‘Uncommon Animals of the Alphabet’ so I’m starting to build some kind of momentum, even if it does take years.

Hopefully my fourth book will come together even quicker. Even with my new environment of trying to create while being the boss of a cafe. Maybe one day I’ll be able to have time to create properly and not between mowing lawns, pouring coffees or getting the kids back to sleep in the middle of the night. Maybe one day I’ll just be able to illustrate as a living, at a desk, without kids climbing all over me. But perhaps the creativity comes from adversity and that a comfortable studio environment might just kill it.

So I don’t really know what I want, except that I want to keep creating. And I’ll always, no matter what, find time to create. Because it’s an essential part of who I am. Sometimes I hate that fact and wish I could be a normal person, but the urge to create is something that I can’t suppress. So I guess you’ll see more from me no matter what happens.