Innovation and collaboration

Scene 2 sketches

After concluding scene 1, we've moved on by sketching out scene 2 and as usual, I scanned it in to be illustrated digitally.

I've illustrated the shoplots background, so that it will make my workload easier by zooming into a certain area without having to illustrate the background repeatedly.

And by using back the same template (the pages with the bleeding set), I started on illustrating all the scene 2 except for 2 fox scenes which Lai Yenn illustrated.

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Presentation

We had a presentation to propose our idea to the clients and I illustrated the icons with Komal while Lai Yenn compiled the slides.

The comments that we've gotten from the clients were, that this is a good idea and we can add more scenarios to the book. Currently, we had 4 scenes, and each scene roughly took up 8 pages, so, if we were to add more scenes, there will be more than 32 pages. It is my fault for forgetting to mention how many pages we are doing. In my opinion, I think children have short attention span, so we try not to put in too many scenes. But we did mentioned that this book is part of a series, so if parents or their children wish to read more, they can purchase other series.

Another comment we've gotten is, other than rainbows coming out and them dancing, add in more actions, more surprises so that children will be more curious as to what will happen next. I half agree on that suggestion. The reason why we make all the Dog's scene the same, with the characters bobbing their head to music, is because we wanted it consistent. So, that children would know that they have make the right choice when they see the same music play and the character's same dance. Nevertheless, I still like the idea of adding different actions and surprises. Maybe we will implement this in our other future series.

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Completed Scene 1

I illustrated the scenes and added in video in metaio, Lai Yenn compiled everything and added text, and Komal animated the choices for the scene.

While illustrating the scenes, I find it hard to keep the consistency of the characters especially when they are in different poses. That's why we drew the sketches then only I scanned it in. I feel much easier to illustrate digitally that way. I also keep notes to myself to keep all the stroke size the same and the camera position of the characters, for example, if fox stands on the left, he will always be on the left.

I've also planned that for every scene, they will be moving to the right. I think it might be easier for readers to follow as words are also read from left to right. So, it makes them feel like they are moving to somewhere. Whereas, if I draw them to move to the left, it feels like they are going back to somewhere.

As for the fonts, initially we've thought of using helvetica, but I think for a children's book, the font might give off a too serious mode. So, I suggested we should change to a fancier font, but not too fancy to the point it hard to read.

I've illustrated a complete background then only I zoomed into certain spots when I place the characters with the background. Lai Yenn helped me out in placing some of the backgrounds.

And here is the video for fox's choice :

And Dog's choice :

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First QR code testing

Before we did the renewed sketch for scene 1, I tried placing the illustrations in Metaio to generate the QR code.

Firstly, download junaio to try out our first QR testing :

http://www.junaio.com/download/

And here's the first test that I did :

Firstly, scan this QR code with junaio,

Then scan this image :

And this video will appear hovering above the image :

The reason why we did not proceed with this layout because children may have difficulty trying to read in paragraphs, so we reduced the storyline to sentences. And it is hard to distinguish the characters from the background as they seem to look like they blended in. I agreed that the characters seems like they blended in. There seems to be no sense of depth, even though it is a 2D image. My eyes couldn't find a focus point to focus in this layout. It leaves me feeling confuse as to where should I concentrate in the layout. We are currently working on a new layout.

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First Scene Sketches

Before we proceed to illustrate scene 1 in illustrator as a mock up, we did a sketch mock up for scene 1.

Initially, we planned to have our book in landscape format. However, Mr. Mike shared with us about user friendly experience. So, we tried flipping pages in landscape format and it turns out that for someone with smaller hands (target audience), it is more difficult to flip the pages compared to portrait mode.

And so we've decided to make our book in portrait mode.

Our first sketches are in landscape mode :