shelley scraps

Illustrators can be a lonely bunch, one cog in a production process involving a team of people you usually never meet. More often than not you deal with an art director, designer or editor, just one or two staff members who are merely the tip of an iceberg of people involved in the project. Others might include creative directors, producers, authors, copywriters, designers, marketing staff, printers and distributors.

So it's always a pleasure to meet someone for the first time who had some kind of involvement in a past job, especially when it's the author of a book, and even more so when illustrations and story were created at opposite ends of the world.

Back in 1994 I was deeply emerged in Tokyo life, having at that stage been based in Japan virtually without a break for eight years.