The making of Moyo, the wildebeest named heart

The illustrations in Tata&Squack, The BIg Journey are a mix of photographs, drawings and collages. The photographs for the illustrations were taken in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and in the Masai Mara in Kenya. A lot of the wildebeest, especially Moyo, are ink drawings. To set him apart a bit, Moyo is slightly bigger and sturdier than the average wildebeest. I had a hard time with the heart in his face, which gave him his name, because I did not want to make it too obvious, but still recognizable. Another wildebeest, which can be seen throughout the book does not have an official name, but I called him “Zottel”. He is a bit of a scrawny, sad-looking wildebeest. He seems to be standing around a lot, looking, something wildebeest are very good at. All the drawings were scanned and then assembled, layer for layer in Photoshop, enabling me to change the composition around to fit into the layout.