Canon..again!

I put this picture in photoshop and added shadows and blured the page so your attention is drawn to the main character. I made Canon large so that the reader will have an instant connection to her, and if they look close they will see the turtle hiding along side the dirt path.

Here is a picture with the type added in, Im having difficulties wondering where to put it.

First Page Rough Draft

Here is the rough draft illustration to what will be my first page of the story!

Canon

Here is the main character of the book- i will be fixing her/ tweaking, but i thought you all would enjoy seeing her progress!

Turtle- redo

I took out the strong black outlines and fixed up my turtle character! I think he looks great now and more unique!

Photoshop/Illustrator fun

I went to visit my Director, Monica, today and we went over a few techniques I could use for my children's book. One of them was to use the blur tool in photoshop to help the viewers eye focus on the main "subject". I think it worked perfectly. Its almost as if we are looking through a camera at the character on the page, only focusing on the character! I used the burn tool and added some shadowing by the fish as well! Then I added some text, which i will have to keep working on but this is just a rough draft!

Start to another page

Here is the start to another page!

Fish

I made some fish to put in my book!!! They turned out great especially after I put them "under water"!

Rough/Story board ideas

Here is my story board I made a while ago for a reference.

Illustartion Progress

Here is/ will be one of the pictures I will be using in my Book! Its a start!

This is going to be the page where Canon sits on the rocks to look at the fish..* i just added in the turtle* i will be adding in fish and then Canon to follow

Meet Shelly the Turtle

This is one of the characters from my Children's Book. Her name is Shelly. She was hand drawn and put into illustrator and I put textures inside of her. She took me all night! Im pretty proud of her! Textures really help a flat character become alive!!!

My story

One summer afternoon Canon, the puppy and her owner Elizabeth went down to the river.

Canon wanted to watch the fish in the river, so she walked over and sat on a pile of rocks that were close to the edge of the water.

All of a sudden the rock Canon was sitting on started to move!

Canon looked down and saw a strange creature looking up at her!

"What are you?" asked Canon
"Im a turtle" Replied Shelly

"Why do you have a rock on your back?" asked Canon.
"It's not a rock silly, its my shell. It a house that is a part of me and I can take it anywhere! It keeps me safe and warm."

"What do you like to do for fun" Canon then asked.
"I like to swim in the river and play all day!"
"Me too!" replied Canon.

Then Shelly and Canon swam in the river! They splished and splashed all day long!

Soon it was time for Canon to go home. She was sad she had to leaver her new friend. Shelly then told Canon "dont you worry, friendship last forever! I'm sure I'll see you again very soon!"

Dancing Drum

I have been checking out children's books from the library. The first book I read is called Dancing Drum, a Cherokee legend. Written by Terri Cohlene and Illustrated by Charles Reasoner. The books illustrations through out the book have a blue/grey color tone until the very end where the landscape is bright and sunny and there are green fields, which as I have talked about in previous blogs shows the progression and potential growth of a character. What is interesting in this book, the main character is not the one that ended up learning and growing, it was the sun and not the little boy. As far as the illustrations, the characters are simple and most of them have a texture underneath which helps bring life and dimension to them. Most of the time in books the main character is closer to the reader, but in this book they did not follow this rule. I believe that if the illustrator did, then the book would have been a little bit more sucessful.