"Beauty & The Beast" was my favorite cartoon in my childhood. I learned from it that if you love someone strong enough, even the beast could transform and heal into a beautiful prince. 

 However, in reality, I found out a lot of disadvantages in romantic concept of falling in love with the very first stranger who comes across, marrying them, and living happily ever after until death separates them. Unfortunately, many romanticized love stories taught mostly girls to totally ignore red flags, and think that they can heal their partner with love no matter what beast they are. And if the beast doesn't change, it means you do not love him hard enough, etc.

 And we end up in a world where many people suffer in relationships and are too afraid to separate because it's supposed to be "one and only". 

One of the consequences is that 23% of women all over the globe suffer from domestic violence, do not leave their tyrants, and are even afraid to talk about it. 

This picture book is the result of my anger toward unrealistic expectations from romantic relationships seeded to us in childhood. 

It is my first ever picture book. I drawn it fully in Procreate.

The overall story:

Let me walk you through my process of creation :)

I started with linear sketches to find rhythm of the story I want to tell. 

After that I was looking for the color sketches for my storyline:

After the overall rhythm was more or less found, I dive deep into sketches to find main characters, their poses and facial expressions:

The last stage was to sit and draw all the pages one by one. And finally I took a look on all pages all together correct and adjust it to fit each other and the plot.

Thanks for your attention! Let me know what do you think in the comments :)