How Great is Ladybug Girl?

While working on Bean, I was wistfully reading David Soman and Jacky Davis' Ladybug Girl to my kids. I was working on Bean before we discovered Ladybug Girl so I was almost discouraged to see someone had already covered similar ground—and so much more successfully.

David Soman's Ladybug Girl

With Bean, I was investing so much energy in a subtle sci-fi setting and a princess/construction crossover. But at the end of the day, I was trying to show an empowered little girl who beat boredom. David and Jacky had already done that in such a clean, beautiful way.

I'm still excited by the potential stories in the Bean universe, but Ladybug Girl inspired me to try something with a simpler concept. I was letting myself get bogged down in world-building. I had made so many rules.

With Captain Billy, I'm still working in a sci-fi universe, but it's as imagined by Billy—so there are no rules! And instead of trying to introduce a character and world, I'm now focused on telling a simple story. Regardless of how Billy imagines it, he's still just a boy sent next door for a cup of sugar. The end.

I'm also going to keep my aesthetic approach looser this time around. While Bean relied heavily on clean line and graphic shapes, Captain Billy is going to be more about color and tone. I'll start with pencil again, but will move to watercolor before putting down any ink. And I'll resist the urge to draw and redraw every line over and over until it's overworked and sterile.

Maybe I'll have a few drinks before I begin.