Tutu & The Ball
This is the story of Tutu, a sweet duckling who loses his toy ball while playing with his friend Kiki the dog and his adventures to retrieve it. Along the way, he gets distracted chasing a frog, fish, and a butterfly and trying to move like them as he meets friends who offer help finding his ball. While he gets frustrated, he ends up learning that he can have fun in so many more ways than he imagined.
I developed this story with my nephew in mind, as he’s a third culture kid who we’d love to have grow up connected to his Egyptian roots. In Arabic, we have the Modern Standard dialect which is more formal, and dialects unique to various countries and regions. While we don’t ever speak in standard Arabic, many children’s books are published in that dialect, which can be difficult for even adults to connect with. So for this story, I chose to keep an informal, approachable language and mixed media art style to better connect to young kids.
A page from the story of Tutu swimming with fish
A page in which Tutu kicks the ball very high up!
Tutu rushing down the hill to get the ball, chasing a frog in the process.
Style test that doesn't actually take place in the story, but could do
Test for the character designs of Madame Mimi the goat and Kiki the dog.
Testing the style and characters for Fulana Fifi the chicken and Tant Tema the cat.
Colour script to see how the story looks overall; to be read right to left, as in Arabic
An initial look at Tutu the duck.
Thumbnail sketches of possible cover variations
Initial sketches of the animals in the story
