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✨ Behind the Scenes: Chapter 2 of The Constellation Series ✨
I’m excited to share the visual development for Chapter 2 of my children's picture book project (adapted from Rumi's tales). These three scenes showcase how I use illustration to drive the narrative forward:
🔮 Scene 1 (The Bubbles): Introducing magical elements to spark curiosity. The bubbles reflect the monkey's dreams and the wonders of the forest.
🌙 Scene 2 (The Gathering): Building atmosphere through lighting. I used glowing lanterns and a starry sky to create a sense of unity and wonder among the animals.
🐇 Scene 3 (The Reflection Pool): A storytelling device where the water reflects different scenes from the chapter, adding depth and encouraging young readers to look closely at the details.
My Process:
From character consistency (keeping the rabbit and lion recognizable across pages) to environment design and color scripting, every detail is crafted to make the story immersive.
Are you writing a children's book and need a professional illustrator to bring your vision to life? Let’s chat! ✉️🎨
#ChildrensBookIllustration #VisualStorytelling #PictureBookArt #CharacterDesign #BookIllustration #Rumi #Illustration #ContraCommunity
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From AI-generated artwork to a more polished vector illustration.
I tested Ideogram Vector by generating an illustration for a lemon ginger tea packaging.
The raw output was a good starting point, but it still needed some work.
So I converted it into an editable SVG, refined the shapes, rearranged and resized the elements, and added a bit of texture to give the illustration more depth.
Here's a look at the before and after!
What do you think? 🍋
4 voted
9%
41 voted
91%
45 votes
Closed
After is absolutely better it focus on the main image🎉🎉
The Modern Bestiary — Old monsters, new curses
I found Anton Seder's Das Thier in der decorativen Kunst (Vienna, 1896) on the Internet Archive, in a public-domain scan by the Getty Research Institute: dragons and sea serpents engraved like a naturalist's specimens and framed in gold ornament. I cut five of Seder's dragons into a Recraft V4 Style that draws the creature and the engraving, then built two more Styles from the same archives (Doré's storm hatching, Harry Clarke's white line on black, Seder's own damask and gold) to repaint each plate in two or three inks over black. Chained together, they make The Modern Bestiary: six folklore creatures whose legendary power has become a modern curse.
The basilisk now petrifies you through your phone, the sphinx makes you prove you are human, and Baba Yaga's hut only turns round for the exact password.
Every creature became a full-art trading card. The deck comes with a back, a booster pack, cardboard mockups and a pack-opening film, all made in Recraft Studio; the card frame and text are typeset on top.
🗂 Recraft project: https://www.recraft.ai/project/bbf6a9a5-fbd2-4dd7-a384-1365fe3f0d53
🎨 Styles (anyone with the link can use them):
I · Seder 1896 — https://www.recraft.ai/styles/2ff8402f-d4ad-4fda-a445-12f3f4c6fffa
II · Night inks — https://www.recraft.ai/styles/ed34b145-e226-4098-8b21-1fff449b4b10
III · Lacquer inks — https://www.recraft.ai/styles/e1b93a4a-5277-4d1f-b82b-d19d60bbb8b4
📜 Archive: https://archive.org/details/gri_33125013920190 (full list of 10 references in the first reply)
📣 Social post: https://x.com/builtbykern/status/2116669432323842378
Stunning
The Afternoon of the Dragon (Venice, 1726)
It began as an ordinary, sunlit afternoon in the grand piazza. Gondolas drifted along the canals, and citizens in velvet coats and powdered wigs strolled beneath the marble colonnades, chatting about trade and theater. In the center of the square, two young children were laughing on the warm cobblestones, playfully chasing their ginger cat as it darted between stone pillars.
Without warning, a terrifying shadow fell over the plaza. A colossal black-and-gold scaled dragon crept out from behind the grand bell tower, its massive wings blotting out the sky. With a deafening roar, the beast unleashed torrents of molten fire across the rooftops and market stalls, sending panicked crowds scattering in every direction. Spotting the two children alone in the center of the square, the dragon lunged forward to hunt them down.
The older child scooped the terrified cat tightly into their arms, grabbed their sibling’s hand, and sprinted for their lives as dragon fire rained down and stone columns shattered just feet behind them. Trapped at the base of the basilica steps with the beast’s burning jaws wide open, all hope seemed lost—until a blinding eruption of celestial blue light pierced the smoke.
A legendary wizard with wild flowing white hair, a stormy grey beard, and wind-whipped robes materialized atop the cathedral staircase. Slamming his glowing staff into the marble steps, the wizard sent an explosive shockwave of arcane energy that snuffed out the flames and blasted the dragon backward in mid-air. Raising his arms toward the heavens, the archmage cast a massive, glowing golden barrier dome that enveloped the entire Venetian skyline. Screeching in terror and blinded by the sacred magic, the dragon fled into the distant storm clouds over the Adriatic Sea. The flames cleared, the sun broke through the smoke, and the city, the two children, and their cat were saved.
🏛️ The Archival References: How Museum Art Built the Myth
To bring this undocumented history to life, I combined three distinct masterworks from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Open Access collection into one cohesive visual style:
The Setting — Canaletto's Piazza San Marco (ca. 1725–1727)
Reference Link: The Met Museum — Object 435839
How it was used: Canaletto’s celebrated Venetian oil painting provided the architectural foundation. His precise perspective of the basilica, arched colonnades, and 18th-century Italian golden-hour lighting served as the authentic canvas before the fantasy disaster struck.
The Innocent Heroes — Annibale Carracci's Two Children Teasing a Cat (ca. 1587–1588)
Reference Link: The Met Museum — Object 435852
How it was used: Carracci’s Renaissance genre painting inspired the emotional core of the sequence. The two children in period dress and their expressive cat were transformed from everyday 16th-century subjects into the frantic, brave survivors of a dragon attack.
The Guardian Archmage — John Steuart Curry's John Brown (1939)
Reference Link: The Met Museum — Object 488649
How it was used: Curry’s iconic, storm-tossed portrait provided the visual archetype for the wizard. The messianic gaze, wild wind-blown white hair, long beard, and commanding outstretched arms directly inspired the archmage who halts the fire and banishes the dragon.