Journey into the mystical world of the Vikings with Einar the Brave. Across these tales, Einar and his loyal crew overcome the greatest of challenges, face formidable foes and explore dangerous biomes guarded by mythical creatures.
Along the way, they discover not just treasures of gold and mystical artifacts but also invaluable lessons about teamwork, sharing, and the profound connections formed during their quests. Dive into this series to explore the vast landscapes of the Viking world and the timeless lessons embedded in every horizon.
Einar the Brave and the Mighty Dragon
Embark on an unforgettable journey with Einar the brave Viking, as he faces his greatest challenge against the mighty dragon. Einar's pride compels him to face the dragon alone.
Yet, as flames and fury clash, an unexpected lesson emerges. Discover a tale of courage, adventure and the enduring bonds that shape heroes!
About the project
This is my first self-written & illustrated children's book, it was inspired by the world of Norseman and stories that can be told. I had been wanting to make my own children's book for a long time, yet l lacked the time to work on it. With the publicly available AI platforms making waves, I wanted to experiment by using these tools to increase my production time, while not losing my art style or the general aesthetics of book flow.
After many hours over months of experimenting, I found the software was just not there yet, I tried different AI training methods, but I could not capture my art style accurately. So I ended up creating most of the project manually. It was fun either way!
The Creative Process
I started off by writing a story skeleton, capturing the challenges faced by the main characters and the moral of the story. The book is geared for 3-8-year-olds, so the language did not have to be too advanced.
I then moved over to pencil and paper creating the main character, Einar and the protagonist, the Mighty Dragon. Using the written content, I planned out the storyboard and scenes to capture.
I wanted the characters to be a bit wide and stocky, something that would capture a child's imagination. After I had the designs and storyboard, it was time to move over to drawing each of the scenes and inking them.
After all the scenes had been captured and the flow of the book was looking sound, I moved over to digital. Starting off with a high-resolution scanning, I vectorized all the line work to give it a digital style while still capturing the 'hand-drawn' look.
I then moved over to full colour, painting the drawing digitally in Photoshop. I could not utilize AI to capture my character, but it did a fairly good job of capturing some backgrounds and textures. So by mixing, matching and a lot of editing I was able to build the characters into a colourful, vibrant world capturing light, shadows and atmosphere.
In Conclusion
The project was fun overall, and it spun the idea to create a book series for the characters to live in by fleshing out more stories, morals to learn and adventures.
Look out for more books coming soon!
