Thomas Romain Turns His Sons' Drawings Into Anime Characters

Thomas Romain is a French animator who lives and works in Tokyo, and his most charming project started at the kitchen table. His sons draw monsters, robots and heroes in pencil and crayon; Romain then repaints each one as a finished anime-style illustration while keeping the child's original idea clearly visible. He calls the collaboration the "Father and Sons Design Workshop", and the side-by-side results have been shared widely online since 2017.

This page shows 22 of those before-and-after pairs, with a short note on what changed in each, plus some background on the artist and what parents can take from the project.

Who is Thomas Romain?

Romain is not a hobbyist. He co-created the French animated series Code Lyoko with Tania Palumbo, co-directed and designed characters for Ōban Star-Racers, and moved into the Japanese anime industry, where he was behind the original concept and art direction of Basquash!. He has also designed spaceships for Space Dandy, contributed design work to Aria, and worked on world design for Macross Delta and Carole & Tuesday. He later founded and became creative director of Studio No Border.

That background explains the confidence of the finished pieces. Designing creatures and machines that look believable from every angle is his day job. In the workshop drawings he applies the same professional skills (structure, lighting, materials, a setting) to designs he did not invent.

How the Father and Sons Design Workshop works

The rule is simple: the children decide what the character is. Their drawings set the silhouette, the number of eyes or limbs, the colour scheme, the weapons and often a name written in Japanese. Romain's job is to interpret rather than replace. Look closely at any pair and you will find the child's choices preserved: the same stripes, the same odd number of legs, the same polka dots, now with texture, shadows and a world around them.

Many of the finished paintings carry a small date in the corner, which shows the series was being produced regularly through 2017. Romain shares the results on Instagram, YouTube and Patreon, and the sketches themselves, drawn on lined notebook paper, are always shown alongside.

Monsters, mages and machines (pairs 1 to 8)

A spiky stick-skeleton bristling with weapons becomes a horned demon of bone and sinew, surrounded by floating masks and purple blades. The child's idea of "weapons everywhere" is kept exactly, just given weight and menace. The painting is dated July 2017.

The original is a robot with a single big eye, green joints and a saw for a hand. Romain turns it into a sleek pink-and-grey combat machine standing over defeated foes, with the green joint colours and the one-eyed head intact.

This is the full version of the creature in the opening image: an insect gentleman with a top hat, long tusk-like moustache and a polka-dot coat. Romain casts him as an alchemist in a cluttered laboratory, raising a glowing flask of potion.

A boxy walking machine with a chimney, two wheels for eyes and spider legs becomes a steampunk fortress striding through a burning city. It is a good example of how a setting turns a doodle into a story.

One of the few human heroes in the series: a pink-haired girl in a white suit with a visor and a long blade. In the finished version she races through a ruined city on a hoverboard, and she appears again later in the collection.

The sketch shows a round-headed figure with floating orbs and a skirt of green scales. Romain keeps both details and adds a glowing single eye and a staff, turning it into a mysterious battle mage.

Here several separate sketches (a blue-caped knight, a pink figure, an angel and a long striped serpent) are combined into one crowded battle scene in jungle ruins, complete with a glowing green sword. It shows how the father can build a whole world from a page of loose ideas.

A robed figure with a halo, wings and a cross pattern on the chest becomes a radiant armoured angel bathed in golden light, its coloured gems placed exactly where the child drew them.

Creatures with names (pairs 9 to 15)

A crowned, bandage-wrapped sphere with wings and one big eye is reimagined as a flying mummy-orb crackling with lightning while spell books fly around it. The crown and the wrappings are faithfully kept.

Two caped knights with shields, one in pink and one in blue, become a pair of armoured warriors in gold, with flaming swords and flowing capes in the same two colours.

A tall, striped creature on three spindly legs turns into a blue-feathered beast with red legs perched on old bones among grey rocks. The striped body becomes layered plumage, a clever material choice.

The child labelled this winged creature "Blood Fireball" in Japanese katakana. Romain paints it as a skeletal monster with exposed red muscle, juggling skull-shaped fireballs: very much the dramatic villain the name promised.

Marked with the kanji for "thunder", the sketch shows a horned head on a body made of rings. The finished painting is a moss-covered giant seated on a throne in an overgrown forest, watched by small white creatures.

A cross-headed boxy robot with X marks on its body becomes a white mech with a bright green X on its chest. The design stays almost exactly the same; only the engineering details are added.

This page shows real world-building by a child: a "Pomper tribe" with an adult, a baby and four numbered clothing designs. Romain answers with a busy interior scene full of these yellow creatures wearing the outfits.

Giants, fighters and a robot octopus (pairs 16 to 22)

A huge mouth full of teeth under a row of eyes becomes a vast, many-eyed creature with a beard of tentacles, towering over tiny adventurers. The scale shift makes the monster genuinely impressive.

The sketch, labelled "camera" and dated May 2017, shows a robot with a camera body, branch-like arms and a flower on top. Romain turns it into a giant overgrown with plants, its camera lens now a glowing eye in a misty forest.

A diamond-shaped creature with one huge eye and a drill on top becomes a colossal drilling machine. The pink-haired hoverboarder from earlier returns, racing in front of it.

A spiky-haired fighter with claws and pointed shoes becomes a purple-haired warrior in golden armour, surrounded by spears planted in the ground.

A rainbow-striped box with grabbing arms is reinterpreted as a pink robotic octopus with brightly coloured segments, anchors and chains, a fine example of finding an animal inside an abstract shape.

A round, frog-like creature with fins, dated March 2017 on the sketch, becomes a group of frog creatures hiding under jungle leaves among pink flowers.

The final pair turns a tall, blue-and-green figure into a heavy lime-and-blue mech standing on hexagonal stone columns. The child's colour choice is the whole design, and Romain keeps it.

What parents and teachers can take from it

The project is a good reminder that children's drawings are designs, not mistakes. A few practical ideas follow from Romain's approach:

• Ask before you add. The child chooses the name, colours and powers; the adult's role is to bring the idea to life, not to correct it.
• Show both versions together. Displaying the sketch next to the finished piece keeps the credit with the young inventor.
• Add a world. Even without professional skills, asking "where does it live?" or "who is it fighting?" turns a single drawing into a story.
• Keep and date the originals. Romain's dated pages make a record of how his sons' imaginations change over time.

The child's invention remains the heart of every image, and that is why the series feels warm rather than showy. Another family-made idea that turns everyday play into time together is A Father's Toy-Car T-Shirt Turns Play Into a Shared Moment.

Sources: Thomas Romain, Wikipedia; Bored Panda, Father and Sons Design Workshop feature; Thomas Romain on Instagram. Artwork by Thomas Romain and his sons.