Finished At Last...

Ah! Finally I can sleep! It took staying up until after 2 every day of the week last week, but I got the book done! Friday night I finished up the smaller quick sketches (black and white) that would accompany the text in parts (might make them full-blown color images eventually), and then I drove to Staples where the guy there helped me out as the store was closing (which was very kind of him), but misprinted twice and then bound the last page (the part that says "The End") backwards so it was facing out instead of in. I also noticed two spelling mistakes and a missing line that I wrote in by hand later. So in the end it was by no means perfect, but my nephew liked it and so did my sister. She too seems excited at the idea of getting it published, and has a friend in the business she said she would have to show it to. Well we'll see how that goes.
I enjoy illustrating things for my own projects, and the only way I was really able to do this one for my mother was to make it my own (in other words - make them all animals instead of people!). If someone wanted me to illustrate a book that was about something I was completely disinterested in though, it would NOT be fun. But I guess that's part of what "work" is: #1, It's not play, and #2, your freedom and creativity are constrained by whoever is paying you the money. But you know, maybe it'd be a good thing for me. I mean, it would be basically like my current job (illustrating what someone else tells me to illustrate). But the nice thing about book illustration is that you don't have to be in any particular location to do it. No office. That'd be pretty awesome...as long as I could make myself work...(which was the main issue with this project). I was able in the end to complete it by forcing a deadline upon myself, however - so maybe that's all I really need. Deadlines.
Except if I procrastinate until the last minute as I often do, I might give myself carpal tunnel. :P

Okay here are the rest of the pages, shrunk down as usual (for copyright reasons):