'The Blue Pet': Children's Book

Continuing on from the previous projects involving 'The Blue Pet' where we had to produce pages for a baby book and a graphic novel. We then had to take what we'd learnt from these two and produce a sequence of images for a children's book. There were four single pages and one final double page spread. You were given the captions for each page [as written below each image] and the character personalities:

Blue Pet: brave, optimistic, positive, outgoing, sunny disposition; Dog; inquisitive, full of opinions, bit of a snob, and nosey; Cat: kind, helpful, looks out for others, has a caring nature, puts others before him/ herself

From then on you pretty much had the freedom to illustrate the story how you liked including those specific details.

SINGLE PAGE 1: The runaway travelled on and met two new friends

Although the main method of colouring these illustrations was through using a drawing tablet in photoshop I also included texture elements, where I sourced images for things like the wood used on the boat and the jetty in this image. I mean that my illustrations would be full of colour but also had real texture on certain elements. I worked hard to keep them on the same level as the flatter colours, and not make them look odd and stand out from the image too much.

SINGLE PAGE 2: They were excited to see a distant light

SINGLE PAGE 3: They hatched a plan...

SINGLE PAGE 4: There was a terrific noise!

DPS: The thief escaped

Mediums used: Line art was done on layout paper using pencil, and was then scanned into the computer.

The colouring was done in photoshop using a drawing tablet and a range of different paintbrushes. Some of which belong to dommifox. I also used a range of textures which I sourced online for things like the map, rocks, and temple wall.

Blue Pet: Graphic Novel

"Having completed work for a very young audience you are now asked to consider an older audience...Consider bother the type of content and visual signature that appeals to the audience.

Produced a four page sequence as samples for a proposed graphic novel. Use the test as a starting point for the invention of a visual narrative which is an excerpt from a full, longer graphic novel...the images alone show convey the narrative and hold the reader's interest."

Mediums used: Drawn and "coloured" with stabilo fine liners. I wanted a rougher appearance to this graphic novel to make a distinct difference between the baby book - bold colours and clear shapes, to the more adult specific graphic novel with a scratchier and darker appearance.

'The Blue Pet'

We were all given the same piece of text and given the task of interpreting it into something suitable for a 5 page baby book [including the cover page]. Each page was 16.5x16.5cm and we weren't allowed to use any text on the pages. They had to purely be illustrations which would easily convey what the character was going through. 

COVER PAGE - Rendered text will go in the clear space without the snow

PAGE 1 - Lonely and Lost but finds the house

PAGE 2 - Inside he meets the dog by the fireplace

PAGE 3 - he then meets the cat on the sofa

PAGE 4 - he finally feels comfortable sleeping in the washing basket

It was a very interesting task because you'd think simplifying something for a young audience would be quite easy, but because you were simplifying things that you knew about it made it tricky. I especially had trouble making the animals fit in with the style of my blue pet character which was very "blobby" and made up of rounded shapes.

I ended up taking the Christmas setting from the text and the meeting of all the different animals, but then having it that the Blue Pet was lonely and lost on Christmas, and he's wandering around in the snow and finds the house where he meets a few of the animals. He tries out their sleeping positions and places but doesn't feel very comfortable; until he finds his comfortable sleeping spot which ends up being the washing basket.