More character design...

 

So here's my little girl creature stuff. I'm a little worried that the tail is making her look like a dinosaur of sorts. I suppose it shouldn't really matter but I chopped it off for one of the above colour concepts. For some reason I think the flat colours work MUCH better with the creatures than they did for the human girl/dog.  

And here's one of the takers. I don't know how I feel about these designs. I'm going to take a step back from them and maybe do some writing for awhile and then revisit them again with fresh eyes.

Pictoplasma...

Why the hell hasn't anybody told me about this until now!? This is something Joel mentioned in my tutorial and it's soooo inspirational. Check out their website - PICTOPLASMA.

Here's some of their stuff.

Dave also sent me this link to something from Ni no Kuni too which has some interesting character references.

Things are going well!

I had my tutorial on Monday and I didn't get any criticism for my idea! Not only that, but Joel said that I didn't have to have a finished book by the end of this unit, and that I could finish it in the next unit along side doing something smaller. Something smaller... I thought about this when I got home and I was thinking it might be nice to make toys of The Takers. That's just an initial thought, but we'll see. So here are my initial concepts for The Takers. A lot may change, for instance they will need to be clothed purely for the fact that I'm referencing animals being used as clothing in the story. It's fun as fuck to draw these though. They could look like anything I want and I LOVE that. So below are some Takers and some ideas for my little girl Taker too.

I suppose I can show you what I've got for my story now too...

The Takers

In the dark twisted woods, mostly hidden from view,

Live the creatures that we call the takers, it’s true.

The takers all take, as their name would imply,

If they had half a chance they would take you and I.

They take babies from mums; they take brothers and sons,

They take daughters and sisters and put them in buns.

So the takers all took ‘til their bellies were fat,

Until one day, a young taker came and changed that.

The young taker was saddened by such selfish deeds,

So she asked adult takers just what was the need.

She walked up to a man who was chomping away,

And she said just what she’d always wanted to say.

“Excuse me?” The girl said, with a smile on her face,

“Do we need to kill creatures to put on our plates?”

“We’ve got plenty of food and we wouldn’t cause harm,”

“We don’t need to hurt fellow creatures like this one.”

“No no no!” He replied “You just don’t understand,”

“We’re the takers who take, and we take what we can.”

But the girl wasn’t fooled by the taker’s reply,

She would ask other people, she needed to try.

The next taker took creatures from far, faraway,

And kept them inside cages, alone and afraid.

“Excuse me?” Said the girl, standing under the stars,

“Why do we need to keep some of them behind bars?”

“We don’t need to do that. Can’t we leave them alone?”

“Why would we lock them up far away from their home?”

“No no no” He replied, “You just don’t understand”

“We’re the takers who take, and we take what we can.”

But the girl wasn’t fooled by the taker’s reply,

She would ask other people, she needed to try.

So she spoke to a woman, who used creatures’ skins,

As shoes, belts, coats, sofas and various things.

“Excuse me?” Said the girl, standing on tippy-toes,

“Why on Earth would we make living beings into clothes?”

“We’ve got hundreds of things we could use just as well,

I don’t think that it’s right to put creatures through hell.”

“No no no!” She replied “You just don’t understand”

“We’re the takers who take and we take what we can”

But the girl wasn’t fooled by the taker’s reply.

She would ask yet more people, she needed to try.

Next she spoke to a man with a science-y mind,

He did tests on small creatures to help his own kind.

“Excuse me?” Said the girl, “This makes no sense to me…”

“It’s not right to deny creatures their liberty.”

“If we’re really so smart, we would find better ways.”

“To help takers and creatures without causing pain.”

“No no no!” He replied “You just don’t understand”
“We’re the takers who take and we take what we can”

The girl still wasn’t fooled by these taker’s replies.

She would ask her own mother, she needed to try.

So as you can see, I've addressed some of the BIG areas of animal exploitation that occur. The final conversation she will have is with her mother, and rather than addressing a specific area of animal exploitation, I want it to address the idea as a whole. This will round off the story in a way that leaves no loopholes or excuses to be made. So after that final conversation, my initial idea is that she will be disillusioned and sad because nobody but her seems to care, only for one (or some) of the Takers to show up and agree with her. I'm not selling this concept well. In my head I can picture it and I've actually already got some ways of rhyming it floating about already but you'll have to wait.

A change of direction... AGAIN...

Last night I spent a long time discussing the pros and cons of the latest incarnation of my story. Eventually, it was decided that the creatures were being kept in the story merely for the sake of having them there. They served a pretty good purpose, but it created this confusion between the real world and the fantasy world that I just couldn't solve. In response to this, my latest idea is to make the entire story fantasy. The creatures will be there but they will exist in their own world. The creatures are going to be called The Takers. They're basically symbolic of our relationship with the planet. In this version of events, a young taker is going to be the catalyst for change. Here's my super fast general plot structure...

Equilibrium

We see the world of the ‘takers’.  It runs parallel to our own. We discuss what they do in terms of destroying the environment, exploiting other creatures etc. They take what they can and what they want with no issues. Our main character is a young ‘taker’.

Disruption

She suddenly feels uneasy with the current situation that she lives in - This can either just be due to curiosity/compassion or she may witness some kind of event or have some kind of experience that leads her to asking these questions – I think she should meet a wise taker who has lived vegan for her entire life. This way she can say with authority that we don’t need to eat animals and stuff, because as far as she knows, maybe you DO need to eat animals. (although this is becoming dangerously similar to my original story now)

Recognition

She begins to ask why things are the way they are and why we can’t change them – This can be portrayed by her going to various Takers and asking “Why do we take...” “We have more than enough…” So she will be confronting the adult takers with their choices, each time though they will answer back in a profoundly stupid and selfish way. This allows for good repetition, which is quite important in children’s books. “NO NO NO – He said back, his eyes burning with rage, There’s no problem with locking him up in a cage” etc etc.

Repair

She tries to forget what she’s seen and tries to fit back in with society. She is unable to though, because she knows what she has seen is wrong in her heart.

New Eq

The child creature feels lost and isolated but finally one of the takers she approaches agrees with what she has to say… Or perhaps one of the takers she’d already spoken to comes around after calming down. Something nice, that gives an air of hope.

That was all I needed to get started. As such, I've begun writing my rhyming version already which is as follows...

In the dark twisted woods, deep and hidden from view,

Live creatures that we call the takers, it’s true.

The takers all take, as their name would imply,

At night time they take all the blue from the sky.

They take babies from mums; they take brothers and sons,

They take daughters and sisters and put them in buns.

They take friendly, sweet creatures and turn them to shoes,

They take everything they want, they’d even take you.

So the takers all took ‘til their bellies were fat,

Until one day, a young taker came and changed that.

See, the taker called Jess liked to think and to feel,

She had never felt right with the taker’s ideals.

So this here is the story of how that young girl,

Through a small act of kindness, would help change their world.

On a dark, starlit night, Jess was walking back home,

When she spotted an Inglebark all on its own.

She could see by the look in its eyes it was scared,

So she instantly hugged him and stroked his soft hair.

This will no doubt change. I like SOME of what's been written but I'm not sure about all of it. I also feel somewhat uneasy about inventing the names of creatues (like Inglebark) because it just feels like I'm doing a Dr Seuss. But yeah, that's where I'm at now. I can see this method coming across well, and I also like that it's somewhat dark in comparison to the cute version of events from my first script.

Oh yeah, it should also be stated that initially this idea was just to have the creatures eat real human children, but this could also cause a conflict between the real world and the fantasy world. I may yet simplify this version of events to being about our dietary habits, but it's just so tempting to portray the takers as beings that take anything and everything that they want - as humans do.

*UPDATE*

I've written a few scenarios for the repetition element that I think work quite well.

“Excuse me?” The girl said, with a smile on her face,

“Why do we need to put all these creatures in crates?”

“We’ve got plenty of food and we wouldn’t cause harm,

"If we all just stopped eating creatures like this one."

 “No no no!” He replied “You just don’t understand,

“We’re the takers who take, and we take what we can.”

“Excuse me?” Said the girl, standing on tippy-toes,

“Why on Earth would you make living beings into clothes?”

“We’ve got hundreds of things we could use just as well,"

"I don’t think that it’s right to put creatures through hell.”

“No no no!” He replied “You just don’t understand”

“We’re the takers who take, and we take what we can”

“Excuse me?” Said the girl, standing under the stars,

“Why do we need to keep some of them behind bars?”

“We don’t need to do that. Can’t we leave them alone?

"Why would we lock them up far away from their home?”

“No no no” She replied, “You just don’t understand”

“We’re the takers who take, and we take what we can.”



I think the repetition of the last line works well and also gives an opportunity to have a variation repeat for the final line. Something that summarises how they have changed... I don't know what yet. I hesitate to say "givers" for fear of being attacked with sexual innuendo. I'll think about it some more.

Thumbnails...

Here's some thumbnail stuff that I've done today. I had to rewrite the beginning to my rhyming story to accommodate for the changes too. I'm pretty worried that on Monday they're going to be mad about how little work I've got but writing really does take a lot of time.

Pencil...

I've found the perfect brush in photoshop to emulate pencil texture. FINALLY. I sketched over my inital character sketch of Emily with it and then really quickly roughed in some background to see what it would look like. In the finals I suppose I would be a lot more delicate but it's good to know that I can use this now. I also tried applying some colour to the image, again, very roughly. The pencil work does a lot of the shading for you so it's really not very difficult to work this way. I'm certainly getting some mileage out of this image!

More notes...

I'm really sorry that my blog is severely lacking in visual stimulation. It will get there eventually! I've had some more thoughts on the change of direction that my story has had. I was having an issue with the idea of one creature wanting to eat Emily. The whole story almost fell down to vegetarianism, and I want Emily to be smarter than that. Therefore, when she meets the creatures, they're going to argue about the different ways they can use her. One will want to keep her as a pet, another will want to eat her, another will want to use her skin to make shoes (grim, I don't know how I'm going to say that in a pleasant way) etc. I think this way they can squabble in front of Emily before she argues that she doesn't WANT to be their pet, their shoes, their dinner etc. This new approach will require an entirely new script, since the ending can't be the same. I think this story works better though, and conveys the message in an imaginative way rather than like a list of rules and ethics. I just had to write it down so that I'd remember.

That damn graphite texture...

Today has been mostly essay essay essay. I read some interesting stuff and I feel less intimidated by the 5000 words (feel sick again now). An hour ago I decided that I can't go to bed until I know what I'm working on tomorrow. I have a tutorial on Monday, and although I've got loads of writing and a very active blog to show, they're going to want to see some visual stuff. I thought I'd get out my massive 6b graphite stick and do a quick drawing of Emily just to see what it would look like. Considering it was quick and not planned, it came out quite well. It's not making me wonder whether I should work in pencil, scan in and colour digitally. I used to do this a lot before I preferred clean lines. Also, most kids books that I've been through are rife with texture and pencil lines. I'm not sure why, but it seems to be how things are done. I think I might be able to have more control if I get some smaller sized graphite sticks though. I don't want to have to work HUGE every time (this is a3 paper). Plus, the blunt edge can spoil some of the detail.

This is just me working some new ideas out. I'm now exploring the possibility that there are several creatures again (as per the original script) but they aren't vegan. In this version, Emily would already be vegan and would be the one introducing the others to it. I thought the design of the creature (below) would be better suited to a less-than-perfect character too, rather than the wise creature from script rewrite.

Another version I have in mind is that the creature is scared of Emily because she is human - he could then go on to explain why and she could explain that she doesn't harm animals etc etc. I think this idea is the weakest I've come up with. Still, the earlier idea of the creature in the woods planning to eat Emily is still on the table. I think tomorrow I'll do some more tests with scanning pencil drawings and colouring digitally until I can bounce ideas off of somebody about this new angle for the creature. At least then I'll have work for the tutorial.

Revelations...

I need to write this down before I forget! I was just reading a great book that is going to give me soooo much information for my essay it's unreal, but anyway, it got me thinking more about engaging the audience in an imaginative way rather than laying out rules on how to be ethical. The book was stating that this DOESN'T work, though they only provided one anecdotal piece of evidence to back this claim up. Either way, it's made me think about my own story. What if, and this is a big IF, my friendly vegan woodland creature ISN'T a friendly vegan woodland creature at all. What if the creature is used as a mirror. The creature IS the girl. The creature loves animals, and specifically her, but he (or she) intends to eat her. This will make for a more interesting story AND will allow for a scenario in which the reader can relate easily to the concepts I'm trying to convey. The creature could perhaps put her in a cage and plan to eat her, use her hair to make something, I don't know! Either way, some examples should be provided, and the little girl will always say NO YOU CAN'T EAT ME or NO YOU CAN'T TAKE MY HAIR etc. The creature could then learn from this experience and let her go, and then the little girl could reflect on her own experiences. It will force her into thinking about the way she views animals.

Yeah!?

I don't know about this. I'll be keeping it in mind for when I get back to work tomorrow though. I need to consult with somebody about it!

The woods...

Frankly, I expected more variety in leaf colour by this time of year, but most things still seem to be green. They might be evergreen trees I suppose. Anyway, I thought I'd better put some of my references up for the woods that I will be placing my characters in. These are only mobile phone photos, but they do the job

Lecture by Salvatore Rubbino, Reflecting on my own idea and Rhyming...

This lecture was one of the few that I could sit through without drawing the whole time. I like Salvatore, he's a really nice guy and his books are awesome. He always gives a great insight into the way he works. As you can see, I made actual notes. You may also see a spot of (vegan) lasagne on my sketchbook in the bottom right hand corner. Totally not relevant to this post.


Anyway, after the lecture I felt inspired to get some work done. Earlier in the day I had jotted down some rough rhyme ideas for the book I'm working on. I've been putting off writing the actual story properly since the rework of the first script, so when I got home I thought I'd dabble with rhyming just to help imagine how the story would read. It turns out that it really isn't bad at all! It will need work and it's certainly worth considering breaking up the rhyming portions with structured, repetitive elements. My "muse" (not muse) suggested that the rhyming should perhaps tell the more interesting elements of the story. I do think that the whole book may become a little heavy if ALL of it is written in rhyme, but for now I'm just going to keep going and see how it works out. Here are my first two little attempts that I jumped out of the shower to write down...

Emily loved animals

She loved the squishy ones
She loved the hairy ones
She loved the fishy ones
And even the scary ones


Then...


Would you like being alone?
Locked up, looked at, far from your home?


But then I whacked out all of this...

Now, this here is a story about how a girl

Named Emily decided to help change the world.

It began near the woods, in a cute little home,

The girl sat with her dog, the mum sat with her phone.

“Today, Jess” said the girl, “We are going to find…

“… Some new cute woodland friends, since we’ve both got the time.”

So she put on her wellies, her coat, scarf and hat

Put the lead on the dog and said bye to the cat

Her mum called to her “sweety, now don’t you go far…

Stay inside the garden and don’t go past the car.”

But, see, Emily had other plans for that day,

So she snuck through a gap in the fence to go play.

Outside in the woods there were birds in the trees

There were squirrels on branches and bugs on the leaves.

Emily said “Hello!” to each one that she saw

Then off they would vanish to be seen no more.

It was on this same day that the two good friends found,

Some big scary footprints, pressed deep in the ground.

“Who on Earth has made these!?” Said the brave little girl,

“Come on Jess, let’s find them!”  Now the tale can unfurl.

Now, for a first attempt, I think this is pretty good.

After another lengthy discussion with my (not) "muse" and after the lecture with Salvatore, simplicity has never seemed so important. As I discussed in my FIRST blog post, veganism as a concept isn't tricky but it really isn't as simple as saying "be nice to animals".
Most (if not all) people would say that they like animals. They would also say that they are kind to animals. They would also CONSUME animals and use animal products. This is the point that the book needs to focus on. Emily LOVES animals, but eats them. This will be the question that she has to explore in order to begin her journey into veganism. As Sam pointed out to me, the dietary habits are the first things to change when we become vegan. Everything follows from that. You drop meat, dairy and eggs from your diet and suddenly you drop every animal product. It's the dietary habits that people are so resistant to changing. With that in mind, this book will focus on that one question - "How can you love animals and eat them?"

This prevents the book from becoming too overwhelming for children. The concept is simple and it's the starting point. I'm also trying to think of an easy way to get the overall message into the book, even if only mentioned once. That message being that animals are not ours to exploit in any way whatsoever. I suppose if the creature mentions that he's vegan then the little girl can ask what that means and he can throw that in her face (not literally) (maybe literally) (not really). 

So, apologies for this incredibly long and wordy blog post. I certainly do more writing than drawing these days. I will continue with my rhyming story for now! Oh yeah, I'm already able to visualise pages that I couldn't before as a direct result of writing in rhyme. So that's good!

Creature sketches...

Ok here are the sketches I did yesterday. After a lengthy discussion with a girl that LOVES to refer to herself as my "muse", she made it clear to me that I hadn't thought enough about the creature. It needs to be symbolic of everything that veganism represents to me. She was right. So I'll be doing that soon. In the meantime, look at these weird designs.

You may have also noticed that I couldn't resist doing some thumbnail sketches for potential double page spreads. I think it's best to sketch any immediate and powerful images you have in mind for an idea as soon as they occur. 

Creature design...

Below are some screenshots of my pinterest board for creature design. From going through these images I've sort of been deciding how I want it to look. It needs to be big, calming, furry (perhaps with branches and other natural elements protruding). They are my main features that I want to convey. I don't think I want it to be AS cartoony as the Emily and the dog. Though empathy and emotional response is still very important so it's face will probably need large eyes, but perhaps eyes of full colour, rather than the big white cartoon eyeballs of the other characters. It needs to reflect a sort of spirituality - This creature is not of this world after all, and therefore not of the cartoony world that the little girl inhabits. It needs to be noticeably different in that respect... I think.

I'll start sketching soon.

Doggy designs...

Ok I don't know why but I struggled with this. I think I'm settled on the colour version though. Again, this doesn't mean that the texture or whatever won't change, it's just to show form and colour.

Experimentation with lines...

This first example I've taken the darker-than-the-object-line approach. One of my problems with this is that I expanded the pixels too much when colouring the lines which left the lines fatter than they originally were. Also, I lost the crispness of the line that I had got through using illustrator. This could be remedied by using the "feather" or "smooth" option in theory. It's quite time consuming too, since I'd still have to do the original line work and then choose which lines to colour in which shades etc. That being said, it does look quite cute. I left the eyes in dark grey because the eyes are the focal point of emotion and so will need to *pop* more than the other features. I also applied a texture to the image but I don't really like that.

For the second image, I've gone for the whole make-the-lines-brown option. If all the lines remain the same colour then it is as simple as adjusting the hue on the line layer. However, as you can see in this image, the colour is sometimes too light for some of the darker areas of the image which gives a weird sort of appearance that I'm not keen on at all. This can be remedied by making the line colour darker, but by the time it's dark enough, it may as well be the grey that I'm using because you won't even notice the brown huge. I've yet to try removing the lines. It's doable but it will be a bit irritating.

Inspiration and Essay notes...

I had a tutorial with Paul this morning that has really helped give me direction on the essay front. Now my essay and my practical projects are linked very closely which is great news.
Also, this morning I happened upon the work of illustrator Alejandra Zúñiga.

I'm sharing some of it to give an impression of what is possible if I lose the lines around my images. It also shows some great use of limited colour pallets which I also need to consider for this project. Great stuff.

This red one is specifically interesting to me. The use of colour, the removal of lines and the application of texture make it a very interesting image. The lack of lines doesn't seem to compromise the character either, so it's something to explore certainly.

Emily #2...

This is where it gets fun. Once you start drawing the expressions of your characters you can really get a feel for them. I don't know if the book will be in this style or in the textured -cut out style that I've done before, but for the moment I wanted her to look like this.

Emily...

These are some sketches and colour concepts of my protagonist in the outfit she will be in most of the time. I expect a criticism will be that I don't push the concepts far enough, but when I write stuff I usually have a general idea of how I want the character to look from the early stages.

Reworking the script...

I like this part. After I've written the first draft I like to take a step back from it for awhile so that I can identify potential problems a little easier and incorporate new ideas at a later point. I feel that I've got enough notes at this point to move on to character design, so I'll hopefully be posting some of those up later on.

Also, I was looking more into the rhyming aspect of writing. I'm a little worried that I'd be giving myself a pretty difficult task, and that the rhyming aspect will lose it's appeal as the age range increases to include older children (if we're going to go through with various stories for this little girl). So I watched this...

And then I read this...

How To Write a Rhyming Picture Book and Get it Published — Part 1: A Writer’s Perspective

So for now I'm going to take another step back from the scripting so that I can create some characters. Last time I found that just drawing the characters helped shape the narrative in ways that I hadn't necessarily thought about in the beginning. Let's crack on!

Criticism of vegan children books...

I just happened to come across this old article for the mail online. It's basically what you'd expect - A lot of criticism defensive people that feel their rights to live in a way that harms others outweighs the rights of those being harmed. I mean, look at the poll in the picture. People DON'T think that their children should learn about veganism. Why ever not? Not only is our exploitation of animals bad for the animals themselves, but it's bad for the planet and it's bad for us. This kind of poll is a reflection of the times. I'm not at all deterred though. It certainly shows what kind of a reaction I might get by using the word vegan in my book title, but it's not something that can be watered down. Fortunately, I've dealt with ridiculous arguments before, so I'm not afraid of the potential battle.