Jun Qi

storytelling and illustration

Projects

Various completed and ongoing creative projects

Books

Ongoing

We Paint The World - Picture Book

Everything is different where we've moved — the winters are cold and grey and the trees are all bald. I miss our cat, the tropical plants, the warmth of the sun, the familiar food...but with the magic paintbrush that Daddy gives me, I can bring them all to life. I want to keep…

Book cover illustration of a boy holding a plate of nasi lemak and sambal ingredients cheering on a fight behind him, while his ginger cat freaks out.

Ongoing

Amin's Purrfect Sambal Chilli Paste: Garlic and Shallot's Showdown - Picture Book

Nasi lemak: a much-loved Malay dish of rice cooked in coconut milk. It’s crowning glory? Sambal chilli paste. Now, for the first time in human history, Amin's making the sambal for Daddy's nasi lemak. Garlic and the other existing ingredients are psyched! But when Shallot and…

Illustration of a raintree with epiphytes

Ongoing

Raintree - Picture Book

With her sturdy trunk, feathery leaves and umbrella-shaped crown, the raintree is both majestic and instantly recognizable. But a raintree is more than just a tree. She is an oasis in the city, a forest, a mother, a home. An entire cosmos of life, in just one tree.

Illustration showing Rahim and Riku stumbling into the spirit world and Riku transforming into a tiger.

Ongoing

Beyond the Banyan - Picture Book

Rahim loves spending his afternoons under the sacred banyan tree with his grandfather, Tok, and Riku, their cat. Every day, Tok and the worshippers at the tree shrine regale him with tales of magic and heroic adventure, until he dreams of becoming a warrior and going off on an…

Illustration showing Shan Shan out sketching under a tree by the river, with her animal friends.

Ongoing

Shan Shan and Friends - Children's Book Series

This is a children's picture book series that I'm working on as both an author and illustrator, featuring a spirited young girl named Shan Shan along with her animal friends. Here are pitches for the titles that I'm currently working on: Shan Shan Has No Friends? She's a quirky…

Illustration of characters from Is This Your Shoe - a Malayan Water Monitor, Malayan Tapir, Musand (Palm Civet), Pied Oriental Hornbill, Banded Leaf Monkey and a human mother carrying her toddler, against a tropical forest background.

Ongoing

Is This Your Shoe? - Picture Book

Musang likes it clean. In fact, he likes it so clean that he decides to stop being friends with the other animals who are just TOO messy for him. But one day, a dirty little shoe appears on his clean patch of grass, and he ends up going on a journey to find its owner, hoping to…

Digital painting with chalk texture and batik-inspired style and motifs, of the young girl facing the viewer and breathing in the fragrance of herbs she is holding in her hands with her eyes close. The title is written in gold letters above her, and a colorful scent cloud wafts across the page, and there is a garden of plants in the background. A white cat with a red harness pokes its head from behind the scent cloud on the left of the page.

Whiff - Wordless Picture Book

A fun evening out in the park turns into a nightmare when a young girl wanders off and gets lost. But amidst tears, the fragrant scent of Grandma's curry and other aromatic herbs and spices leads her home. A sweet wordless picturebook about family and belonging through the…

Book cover of Daddy's Hobby, digital illustration showing a close-up of a man's head alongside silhouettes of cycling equipment and fruits.

Daddy's Hobby - Picture Book

This is a short and sweet 6-page picturebook I created as part of the Asian Festival of Children's Content (AFCC) 2023 Picturebook Hackathon, jointly organized by non-profit publisher Pratham Books and the Singapore Book Council. It was a fun, inspiring, though very intense…

Art & Illustration

Illustration of a young girl swimming in spacesea and admiring a coral reef, beneath a large full moon. A manta ray swims overhead, and baby squids shoot past like shooting stars

Spacesea - Illustration Series

When dusk turns to night and the sky becomes as dark as the sea, a girl imagines the sky and sea merging into one, the lights from the distant ships morphing into stars as she stands on a cliff before the yawning depths of the cosmos. Out from her reverie, spacesea is born - a…

Digital painting of a bunch of cats in the garden. The style is textured and shapes are very stylized, while the overlaps between the cats and the background are coloured so that there is an almost ghostly effect. The main colors are teals and pinks.

Feeding Time - Illustration Series

When dusk falls, it's feeding time. The strays are ready and waiting. They know their human will come. But will her kindness towards them be appreciated by the other humans in the neighbourhood? A series of illustrations based on a picture book concept I've been toying with…

Digital painting of a cover for a children's book, titled 'The Fox who wanted Nine Golden Tails'. It shows a stylized red fox with its back arched downwards and its nine sparkling golden tails waving above its head and back, shimmering gold, pink, blue, and green. In the background a dark scaly shape with red har looms, and an eye can be seen. The title is written in gold on the cover. The style is textured with streamlined shapes.

The Fox who wanted Nine Golden Tails - Storytelling Performance and Picture Book

This is a story I adapted into a version for Mandarin storytelling based off an early 20th-century American children's novel of almost the same name. The novel is loosely based on Japanese mythology and is already in the public domain. I initially wrote and performed the Mandarin…

Symmetrical Chinese papercut showing two kittens and two rabbits standing amongst blooming flowers admiring a butterfly mid-flight. The kittens are looking at the butterfly playfully.

Ongoing

Chinese New Year Papercuts

This is a project and a ritual I started in 2020, which was the The Year of the Rat and the beginning of a new cycle of the Chinese zodiac. I make it a point to create Chinese papercuts every year before the new year for decorating the house. I am also slowly building up, year-by…