Category: Work In Progress

While refining this double page spread I knew that I wanted to keep it simplistic with both of the visuals and the elements.

The differences between these two are subtle and only slightly different, but I think that it has a big impact upon the aesthetic. The goals for these pages are to make the visuals slightly darker than the previous pages while still making them appealing towards the child audience. I illustrated the second page with the fish that I didn’t end up using from one of my first rough sketches, and I redeveloped these tom fit the page. As displayed above, I developed the colour palette to slightly vary and be energetic in the sea world- while in later pages the colour will diminish and lessen in order to make these pages bolder. The fish were in colours that matched the landscape and palette, while still being eye catching on their own. I’m happy with the outcome of this page because it works for the narrative, though one improvement that I would have liked to make is the darkness- as I don’t want the plunge into the black to be too sudden. However, by having it in this way it could work quite well because it changes the appearance which would allow the young audience to continue exploring the illustration, while suiting the style and being bold in it’s outcome.

This double page spread is the one that falls after the one with the mountains. It is slowly beginning to fall into the darkness of the aesthetic, thus, I am trying to subtly delve into it so that the flow of the book works, as well as making it appropriate for the narrative. I want these pages to focus upon the loneliness element of the narrative; having lots of other characters/movement within the surrounding to portray the solitude of Nessie (which progresses the story simply for the young audience).

My initial idea for this spread was divided up into two separate pages, though both illustrating the same narrative in slightly different ways. The fish on the left hand page were illustrated using the three tones from the sea within the previous double page spread. By doing this I had a continuous aesthetic between pages and I could quickly progress with the design that I wanted to achieve.

From the monster illustration that I did at the beginning of the process of making my book, I have gone back and decided to make it into a double page spread as this is a key moment in the book and I think that with the composition it will be more powerful with a plain background. Thus, I had a slightly textured paper overlaid on the background so that it could separate the distinct illustrations from it. I then went onto composing the assets into their positions so that I could see how it would look, especially with the simplicity of the colour palette. The background above was chosen for the subtly and the almost monochrome colour palette. Looking back at this, I don’t think that it works because of the textured background which isn’t featured in any of the other pages within the book. Also, it isn’t clear to the audience that it is still underwater; however, I love the contrast and simplicity as it is powerful juxtaposed against the distinct nature of the surrounding illustrations on the pages beforehand.

To see how it would work, I went onto changing the textured background with the sea texture on it. I thought that this may make it obvious to the demographic that they are still underwater, but the grey background doesn’t go with the aesthetic and it looks too dull. By doing this quick experiment, I have learnt that I need to have a brighter background to do it justice; both for the chsracter illustrations and the previous pages within the book. Thus, with these ideas in mind, I will make the background bright and interesting without drawing focus from the monster.

As the final page of the children’s book, I wanted it to end on a happier note and focus on the new found friendship between the two unlikely sea creatures. The visuals were different form all of the other previous pages because of the nighttime setting and the darkness of the sea. However, with the darkness of the depression stage beforehand it links nicely to the narrative, as well as it having a resolution with progression from the beginning of the book. The stars within the background set the calm tone, and by having the majority of the tone in a navy it distinguishes it from the dense black visuals, which I think works nicely. As a final page I think this works nicely and is suitable for the aesthetic. The positioning of the text also breaks up the partly black sea, and the blue links it back to the original sea at the beginning of the book. In hindsight I am extremely happy with the progression of the book and individual pages, and I think that I have tackled the brief and contentious subject suitably for the target demographic with the style of the illustration.

The original mountain that I produced wasn’t suiting the remainder of the book, so I made the decision to go back and develop it so that it would fit the aesthetic.

This is the mountain that I came up with. I decided to make it in block colour (such as the previous pages I’ve produced) as well as having simple colours that contrasted against each other. Each stage of the mountain has been blocked with 3-4 different tones of the same colour to represent the 3D element and contrast of the rock-face. I wanted to have it all in the same style, concentrating on one set of colours; however, as I developed it I liked how it worked with the two sets of colours contrasting against each other, and with the blue ‘river’ in the middle of the mountain/rock-face it really worked nicely.

I developed this into the double page spread. Because this was the very beginning of the book I knew that by having a dark aesthetic would be the wrong direction to go in. Thus, by reflecting the simplistic by effective sky and sea I loved how it looked. The one element that I will go onto develop is the placing of the typography in the actual type face along with Nessie’s positioning, as currently she is too close to the mountain and it might look better if she was separated into the sea.