The origins of The Prince

The Prince had a rather long journey before he ever came alive under Annie's pencil (pen ? quill ? charcoal nib ?).

(cue water-ripple flashback movie effect)

The year was 2004. I was in college at the University of Washington, which is in Seattle, and not St. Louis. The other common misconception is that typical UW students looked like this:

This is completely untrue. These would be students of The Evergreen State College, 70 miles to the south. Actually, I lied. These are what you get if you typed "hippies" into Google Image Search and take the 3rd result. In any case, UW students looked like this:

From sketch to final product

Some of you have asked me about my illustration process, so I thought I'd do a post on it. The following is a step-by-step description of my process, which I mostly figured out by doing what amateurs do best - looking things up on the internet.

You may have gotten a glimpse of some pages from the book - like the page with the castle - in the video from our first post. Here is how it was made:

1) The pencil sketch

When we first started, Phu sent me the text of his story along with ideas for the illustrations. This page is about halfway through the book, and represents a turning point in the story. I wanted to draw a castle under a foreboding sky with dramatic clouds. When drawing things that I have a hard time imagining, I turn to the the same resource I use for literature searches and advice on whether garlic cloves are safe to eat after they've been in my fridge for so long they start sprouting: Google. 

Google, please google "clouds perspective."

Meet the author !

I realized I haven't properly introduced myself in my first post. Who is this stranger writing a children's story book ?

Well, I'm a PhD student at CarnegieMellon in Pittsburgh. My lab is in the department of Biological Sciences, and I spend a lot of time building things, so some people call me an engineer.

"That has nothing to do with writing children's books !!!", you say. You're right ! I guess it's more informative to say I like trying new things.

My first love is photography. The photo below was taken at my 3rd birthday party, in Saigon. My attempt at photographing my friends was quickly abandoned when the cake arrived, and the party was a quiet, sedate affair. At least that's the version my parents told. Since my report cards from this period regularly included the phrase "Phu is sociable but also incorrigibly disruptive", I feel the reality may have been a bit different.

  I'm not sure what camera I'm looking at here, 

but my Dad took this photo with his Canonet. 

No fruit or child-friendly beverage was harmed during this production.