From an eight-copy illustration book to something anyone can hold.
A wordless watercolor book about wishing, made for adults and children at once and printed in an edition of eight. It sold out by hand, one copy to a stranger for $350. Now I’m translating the same IP into formats that cost nothing to enter.
Edition of 8
seven sold by hand, one kept
$350
highest single sale to a stranger, against a $100 list price
Free display
original paintings, pitched and placed in a neighborhood cafe
CONTEXT
Everyone has a wish.
In Rome I kept watching people toss coins into fountains. Everyone did it, whoever they were, whatever they were carrying that day. A wish is one of the few things every person has, and the fountain is where that becomes visible. I wanted to make somewhere else it could be visible.
THE IDEA
One book, no reading age.
From storyboard to character.
A wish doesn’t sort by age, so the book couldn’t either. I made it for adults and children at once, which meant it couldn’t belong to either. A picture book is familiar enough that an adult can pick it up without a reason, and open enough that a child isn’t being taught anything. The mouse and the lost girl, brought together by a shared wish, carry emotional impressions of Rome rather than explanations of it.
THE CRAFT
No words, so the reader brings their own.
The images do the talking, in whatever language the reader brings.
Real paper, real watercolor, eight copies.
The book is non-verbal from cover to cover. Nothing is labeled, explained, or resolved, so readers place the images in their own context instead of mine. It reads for adults and children alike, because neither is being told what to think.
Every page is a physical painting, sketched and painted by hand in watercolor, then scanned. Coins, fountains, and wishes recur throughout, pulled from Roman myth and ritual. A tight palette, on purpose: intimate enough to feel personal, systematic enough to extend.
THE TRANSLATION
Made scarce on purpose. Made accessible next.
The edition was the fundraise and the proof. Everything after it is distribution: the cafe buys reach with no money, the feed tests whether the character can carry the IP on its own, and the game only gets built if it can.
I published on Blurb in an edition of eight and sold it one buyer at a time, listed at $100. One copy went to a stranger for $350. Seven sold, I kept the last one, and that answered the only question worth asking at this stage: would someone with no reason to be generous pay for this world.
Phase two is the same move, further out. The proceeds are committed to formats with no barrier at all: an instatoon in sketch, testing whether the character holds attention in a feed, and a game in concept, built from the storyline. Same world, priced at zero.
- OUTCOME
- • Edition of 8 sold by hand, one copy to a stranger at $350
- • Pitched and secured a free permanent display of the original paintings at a cafe by Yuldong Park
- • Exhibited at the Cornell in Rome 2025 Student Exhibition
- • Proceeds committed to two extensions now in early development
AFTER
The object proved itself. The character hasn’t yet.
An art edition proves the craft. It doesn’t prove the IP. A book on seven shelves can’t tell me whether the mouse and the girl work outside a hardcover, and the whole translation depends on that. The instatoon is the cheap test. If she holds a feed, the game has a reason to exist. If she doesn’t, I would rather learn it in sketches.