I am currently developing a dummy book for my current project, with a working title of 'The Timekeeper'. Here are the first few rough pencil pages, plus one colour experiment. The final 32 page book will be full colour, produced using mixed media (my influences at the moment include Shaun Tan & Simon Bartram). I will also be writing the accompanying text with possibly a little influence from Dr Seuss & Edgar Alan Poe.
The story begins with an astronaut named Alan Shepard, commanding the second successful manned mission to the moon, Apollo 14. Little did NASA know he had smuggled 3 golf balls and the head of a six iron (making the handle from on board equipment). Shepard got one clean shot which he claimed went 'miles and miles and miles...'. Even an astronaut could not have imagined the journey that little golf ball had in store.
In a galaxy far far away an old man, who has been living in space since the dawn of time, is happily going about his business of building the universe one (clockwork) star at a time...Until one day a mysterious little orb, all covered in dimples, pops out of a wormhole and shatters his peaceful existence.
What happens next? well you will just have to stay tuned!
I read about Alan Shepard's moon golfing exploits many years ago, and have always been amused by the idea of it being our first contact with an alien species. I finally got the idea for this story while watching Professor Brian Cox's 'Wonders of the Universe series on the BBC. The idea that time as relative and only existing with the existence of the universe itself inspired the basis of Timekeeper character. The craftsman aspect is possibly down to my dad (who modelled for over 700 photos during the early development of the book) who is a skilled painter (and previously a carpenter). I also wanted to play around with mythological & religious ideas of a creator, or perhaps father time. All in all this book is the convergence of many loosely related items of fact and fiction weaved together.
I feel it is important to challenge children, and their parents! Making them to question the world around them helps create a curious mind...which in my opinion is the greatest gift you can bestow upon a child.
I hope to have a complete dummy book and a minimum of 4 finished spreads for the MacMillan Prize 2012 for children's book illustration, which closes on Tuesday 8th May 2012
posting your images on your blog is a good way of getting some emotional distance from your work. The first thing that strikes me is how there isn't a stromg variation in tonal contrast, especially in the last image. Note that most of your images have this flatness due to a lack of contrast.
ReplyDeleteThe fifth one down however, tonally works really well, despite having gutter problems down the middle.
agree with Chiu, if these pages are DPS then you have overlooked the fact that the gutter will eat at least 2" out of the image...hoping I'm wrong or this is a serious oversight...but otherwise its really a good thing to be publishing your work on your own blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments...
ReplyDeleteChiu - I have edited some of the images a bit to improve contrast, but it is definitely something to consider when I take them forward to colour work.
Andrew - These images are mostly just for the dummy book and to act as reference when developing my final images - which I plan to paint in full colour. Most are made up of a series of images drawn separately, then the spreads are composed digitally (with a few exceptions) so I can make tweaks to suit the print process for production of the dummy book and I will incorporate bleeds etc when I develop finished pieces.
This has been a very steep learning curve as my first children's book. I had seriously underestimated the importance of the dummy book as a development tool, I was primarily using flat plans to work out the narrative content and composition, however the whole reading experience changed once I got it into book format.
Really enjoying this project...wish I had started doing picture books at the start of last year!