Raising orphaned wildlife is all-consuming…especially Eastern Grey Kangaroos. For nine months, I was too busy and exhausted to even consider painting, but wow - what a privilege it has been raising these precious souls. I’ll create another blog post about the rearing of these adorable children, this one is about the book: Maxie Roo Is Just Like You!

Watching their quirky personalities evolve along with their loving friendship and cute little habits, I kept thinking “to know them is to love them”. That was made more apparent when I posted anything about them on Facebook or Instagram. I remembered how protective I felt over deer as a little girl after I was introduced to Bambi. Maybe Max and Indie could have the same effect?

While on our morning and afternoon walks around the property, I started jotting down ideas on my phone. Those cute little characteristics that make Max and Indie so relatable. I sketched out a few different stories, but I wanted to stay true to their real animal traits.

I collaborated with some wonderful people on the writing. My editors Lucinda and Emma of Flying Pants editing were wonderful guides throughout the writing process and my former AP English professor and dear friend Rick Johnston really helped me polish the poetry of the book.

Once I was feeling good about the story, I tackled the telling of it through illustrations, working out the visual flow of the book was a unique challenge. Not only figuring out what the images should be of, but also the visual rhythm pages. The mix of single-page, double-page, full-bleed and spot illustrations all affect the flow of the book.

Maxie Roo rough sketch storyboard book mock up.

I then tackled modifying my style of painting. I wanted create illustrations with a classic feel to them, translucent washes, with old fashioned pen and ink. I did two portrait studies:

I liked the storybook feel of the ink. These were a little too loose but I could see the path forward. So I stretched enough watercolour paper for the whole book and started working out my pencil drawings. It was challenging getting the main characters right, but working in the little extra details like native plants, bees, lizards, turtles, frogs and birds was extra fun.

I then inked the illustrations with acrylic ink using an old-fashioned dip pen.

Finally, it was time for colour. When they were little, Indie had this beautiful caramel coloured fur while Max was more of a bluish grey. As they have grown older, their fur has evolved into a mix of the caramel and the grey so that it changes colour in the sun and the shade helping with camouflage so their colouring now is more the same (but get Indie in the right light and that beautiful caramel colour still appears). Developing their individual colour pallets along with subtle facial structure and stance differences was so much fun. I worked out a relatively limited pallet to create a harmonious feel throughout the book.

It felt daunting at first, seeing all of the illustrations laid out, inked and ready for paint. But, the joy of painting soon took over and within a month I was slicing them off their boards to send them to a professional studio for digitising.

What a rewarding experience this has been.

Yes, I’m already planning for the next book in the series…