My first book project, written by Adeline Foo and published by Ethos Books. It’s a story about a boy who lets his imagination run wild at night and dares not to sleep. I was given free rein to do pretty much whatever I want as long as I stuck to the spirit of the story. Most of the details of the illustrations are based entirely on my own childhood growing up in a 3 room HDB flat in Toa Payoh in the ’80s. The illustrations where the boy, Kai, imagines himself to be a hero fighting the monsters that scares him puts him in the heroic roles of a ronin (wandering samurai), a Chinese wuxia pugilist, and the Monkey King.
I wasn’t confident of my coloring/digital painting skills then so I did the pencils and the coloring job was done by another Singapore illustrator Din.