Setting for This Tree is for Me

Next up: Layout sketches.

Little Jack Horner was never intended to be a good boy. How can the simple act of sticking your thumb in a pie categorize you as a “good boy.” As far as I’m concerned, sticking your thumb in a pie categorizes you as  ”not so bright boy.”

Originally written by Father Duck with the title Little Jack Hornest, it was a cautionary Nursery Rhyme about bears and the dangers of sticking your thumb in their éclair. 

Little Jack Hornest

By Father Duck 

Little Jack Hornest,
Sat in the forest,
Eating a honey éclair;
He put in his thumb,
Then thought “man I’m dumb,”
For it really belonged to a bear.

Little Jack Hornest

Dummy Book for Moo-Pig

The Dummy of Moo-Pig is finally ready to send to a potential publisher. There is a fine line when creating a dummy book. Some say not to put too much work in it as you don’t want to give an impression of a final product. However, I’m a perfectionist. I like to produce a model that an editor can hold in their hands and get a good feel for how the final product will look on a shelf. I do all the printing, binding, and cover myself. The result can be seen above. If there is interest, I will do a walkthrough of my whole dummy book process. I have a publisher picked out and will be mailing the dummy book (the one on the left) Monday.

I would love to hear comments on everyone’s experience with Dummy Books. How much is too much and can producing a “final product” hurt your chances with a publisher?

Little known fact: Hey Diddle Diddle was originally a joint effort between Mother Goose and her cousin Father Duck. It was part of a collaborative writing assignment they completed while attending Rhyming UniNursery. In fact, this Nursery Rhyme is so old that when she wrote it, Mother Goose was no Mother. They simply called her Goose. Upon achieving fame, Goose dropped both the second verse and credit toward Duck for fear of being overshadowed by his far superior prose. Here is the original version.

Hey Diddle Diddle (Origin of the Spork)

By Goose and Duck 

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Bye diddle diddle,
This caused such a riddle,
For the spoon was betrothed to the fork,
But the fork got his wish, the spoon left the dish,
And the two soon had a baby spork.

Spoon, Fork, and Baby Spork

Purple Fish Textures Test

Orange Monkey Textures Test

While the textures turned out OK, something was missing. I tried natural textures, manmade textures, geometric textures, etc. but nothing seemed to fit just right. After struggling, I realized why. The lines didn’t want a texture. They were too playful and loose to support them. In the end, Orange Monkey just didn’t look Orange Monkeyish enough and Purple Fish? Well, he was a bit Fishy. I was about to give up when on a whim I applied the same color style as I used in Moo-Pig and in many illustrations on this site. Both Monkey and Fish loved them.  I enjoy this technique it shows in my work when I use it. Here is the sketch I came up with:

Orange Monkey and Purple Fish in Colorfulticity.

This works much better. I still plan to implement the textures into the illustrations, but they will be used in the setting. This is a curveball in my plan of attack on the book, but I always follow the illustrations where they may go. It’s always important to me to listen to the story, to the characters, and give them what they need to be successful.

This week’s installment of Father Duck’s Nursery Rhymes presents to you Little Miss Mumpus. Mother Goose of course stole her Little Miss Muffet poem from Father Duck’s original. As you will see, this version is far superior.

Little Miss Mumpus

by Father Duck

Little Miss Mumpus
Sat on her rumpus
Eating beans all the day.

Along came a spider
To sit down beside her 
But instead was blasted away.

Little Miss Mumpus

1.  Step away from the project for a week or so, getting plenty of rest.
2. Approach the book with a fresh view.
3. Prepare final dummy for *gulp* submission. I have done research and chosen the first publisher I will send it to.
4. Start the process over again with a new book. 

Look forward to hearing your comments/criticism. Enjoy.

TItle Page

PCIP Data will go here

First Page of Text

Second Page of Text

Third Page of Text

Fourth Page of Text

Fifth Page of Text

My first step in establishing the engine with Illustrator is to create a method to simulate the lines I have envisioned for this project. For this example, I will use Orange Monkey. I had originally planned to use a straight, consistent line. However, while doing the sketches I realized that a jittery quick stroke would work best. I decided to simulate the sketch lines in illustrator. I was able to build a brush that did this effectively. My second step was to begin to build the Illustration in parts. By breaking Orange Monkey up in parts, he could be moved and repositioned easily while retaining consistency, much like a paper cutout put together with brads. I broke him up as a body, 2 legs, 2 arms, a tail, and a head. This allows me to swing his arms and legs to position them however I want and reconfigure his face to get the right expression.

I put all this parts together and played around with poses and positions to see how it works. It was incredibly effective. This method allowed me to work fast and efficient while maintaining the life and playfulness of the original illustrations. Following are the results:

Orange Monkey Sketch

Concept 1

When I first conceived the notion of Moo-Pig, she was actually a physical blend between a cow and a pig. I dropped this idea in favor of a simpler idea: A pig whom liked to do cow things. This would eliminate any confusion for my target age group and would also eliminate the need for the “what’s a moo-pig and how did she come to be?” conversation I imagined between parents and kids. This image is the first image of Moo-Pig as a pig.

This first concept featured a bloated, fat happy looking pig. This went against the story as Moo-Pig would never fall into the bloated, fat happy looking pig category. 

Concept 2

Concept 2 featured a more whimsical, playful looking pig. Though I love stylized illustrations, it didn’t work for Moo-Pig. I felt she needed to retain normalcy. The idea behind this is that she would look like a normal pig while other pigs around her would look comical. This would be a twist in that the non-funny looking pig would be non-piggish and the piggish pigs would look funnyish.

Concept 3

Concept 3 Moo-Pig more closely resembles a pig. Though there are stylized parts about her, the overall impression is “pig.” I also eliminated color. At this point it struck me that this was a story about black and white. Color was not needed. I would include one color, blue, which will make sense in the end. I kept my lines playful but made them more controlled.

Final Art for Dummy Book

This is the current state of Moo-Pig. As you can see, I refined the awkward lines in her hind legs as well as a few other places. Overall, the image is consistent with the character. My lines are still loose and lively. I tried to give her motion. I want her to appear simple so that her actions and character define who she is. At this point I also added in the blue color and simplified the shadows. Simplicity is important to me for Moo-Pig. 

I am now in the process of bringing all illustrations up to this level. In the end I hope to end up with a nice dummy book I can submit for publication.