Molly Mae's Milkshakes
Molly Mae Moocow comes from a family of prized dairy cows. When she finds out she is unable to produce milk, she feels like she isn't good enough. What good is a dairy cow with no milk? Why is she different from the rest of her family?
Will Molly Mae embrace her individuality and learn that it's okay to be different from the herd?
Written by Ajia Kirchgasser
Book design by Katie Weaver
Book design by Katie Weaver
Molly Mae's Milkshakes was such an amazing book for me to draw. I loved designing Molly and C.K. Doodles. And the most fun part of them is that Ajia takes Molly through various emotions which gave me the possibility to draw her in many different poses and expressions.
Designing the environment was also a part of the process I really enjoyed. The book takes place in a small village with cute houses and the farm where Molly lives. The meadows surrounding the village and all the trees and plants gave me so much joy to create
Process
Character design
Since Molly Mae's Milkshakes has Molly as the main character I started with designing Molly Mae first. I created 2 versions of Molly at first, it was up to Ajia to choose which one she liked most. For this version I created multiple poses and expressions for Molly Mae. Making sure I also showed how she looks from different angles and with this character sheet I also tried to capture her chararcter.
Storyboard
When I started with the storyboard it was great to already have a good idea of what Molly Mae looked like and how she reacts to certain situations. When I was designing the storyboard I kept in mind that we wanted a nice flow of double page spreads, single page spreads and spot illustrations.
Sketches
Next was creating the final sketches based on the storyboard. Here I could design the other characters. And this story was full of extra characters. Like the family of Molly Mae, Farmer Dill and his wife. But the most important characters were C.K Doodles, a rooster who is the side kick of Molly Mae and Daphne who will make Molly Mae realize what her talent is.
Colour sketches
Since this story takes place in one town it was important to set a colour palette that could work throughout the book. Ajia envisioned the grass green and the skies blue. But she gave me the freedom to explore different kind of colour combinations. So I tried to different colour combinations. From all green to blue grass and purple bushes. In the end we found the perfect combination of grass that was green with a hint of blue and bushes in more purple and blue tones. This cooler palette for the nature was a nice contrast with Molly Mae's warmer skin colour, the ground and the houses in the scenes.
Rough colours
Now that we found the colour palette I could create the rough coloured storyboard. To keep the overall book light, despite having lots of details I chose to use white on all the pages. Instead of a coloured sky I kept it empty. This balanced the pages. The scenes that take place in the kitches are a different colour palette to bring more diversity to the book.
Flat colours & Final rendering
The final phase is to colour everything in the "flat colours" version. Here I will add details like flowers in the meadows and in case of the page of Farmer Dill and his wife the swirl of hearts filling the page to make it more playful.
After the flat colours are done I could finally start on the lights and shadows. This is my favorite part of the process because it really brings the illustrations to life. For this book I chose a style with lots of extra texture which will give the book a more hand drawn feeling.
