Negotiated Programme

Page 1 Cover  Page 2 and 3  back of cover and contents  Page 4 and 5  copyright and title  Page 5 and 6  High up in the tallest tree in the middle of the jungle, lived an Orangutan and his mother. They were happy as can be. Every day they spent together, having lots of fun! Swinging through vines and climbing on branches: it was how they loved to spend their time  That was until... Page 7 and 8  the rumbling had begun. For weeks and weeks the rumbling would not give in. It would shake all the branches and would make Orangutan's home tremble. Then one day his mother exclaimed "We have to move far away from this place!"  Page 9 and 10  Orangutan was upset, he didn't want to be, but the rumbling got louder. They had to leave quick. Leaping through the vines, his mother was swinging faster than ever before. But Orangutan was tired. His arms were aching and his finger were swore. He tried but couldn't keep up and so he forgot... Page 11 and 1...

Here are my first lot of thumbnails I created for the children's book. I have come up with the name idea of "Help!" this is because throughout the story the characters help each other with tasks and find the Orangutan's mother at the end. I think the name of the book also links to the underlying reason I created this book. That was due to deforestation and raising awareness about that cause and in doing so I am helping the orangutan and so are the audience.  Here are the thumbnails in a digital version. I think I want the back cover to be quite simplistic and a continuation of the front cover- instead of a while new setting and perspective. like I did for the third thumbnail.  For the front cover, I think all three could be a good idea, however, the two I am drawn to is the first cover design and the second.  Because I liked the first two thumbnails for the front cover, I decided to mock up two colour illustrations. I do think the two sidekicks do make the cover more ...

Sign 1: BLUE On this sign it goes through the backstory of how and why Perseus needs to defeat Medusa. It tells us what makes him special- demi-god. It also tells us that he had to leave and the island where his mother is trapped. I wanted the signs to be easily distinguishable by the colour of the boarder.  Sign 2: GREEN Sign 2 explains Medusa's backstory and how she became a Gorgon. I thought that if Perseus got a backstory, Medusa needed one too. It shows who her sisters are and where she lives and also how she turns you in to stone.  Sign 3: ORANGE Sign 3 starts the story. It tells us who Perseus needs to go to, that he needs 3 objects to defeat Medusa and the friends that will help him along the way.   

I needed to draw each character in a different position for each sign they appear on. Danae, Perseus' mother appear on a few and in the first sign, she is seen holding Perseus as a baby when she is standing next to Zeus. So, I decided to re draw this black and. yellow illustration but fully in colour. Overall I think this is effective and not overly complicated for a spot illustration.  I needed to show that Medusa wasn't always a monster and this is my interpretation of her before turning in to the Gorgon. I wanted her to look vain and self-absorbed as this is the Greek Myth I will be explaining in the sign.  Here is Medusa for the main illustration on the slide explaining her backstory. I repositioned her arms but I wanted to maintain the eye contact she has with the audience.  Here's my version of the entrance to her lair. I wanted it to be different to the previous background I did with pillars. I decided to use a dark grey to show that it's a scary place to be. I a...

  Here's the first drawing I did for the sign. When I did this, I realised that it would look better if I did it in black and gold. This is the boat that Danae and Perseus travel on to get to the island where King Polydectes is.  Here's the version in black and gold. This illustration looks more similar to the style that Ancient Grecian artists would paint on a vase. I really like the contrast as I think it really pops.  Because I did the boat in the black and gold, I decided to create some of my characters in that style. I think they look really eye-catching and distinct. However, because they are all the colours, it could be hard for a child to distinguish who's who. So, I will just use these black and gold illustrations for part of the sign which isn't the main story. In this illustration Danae is holding baby Perseus this is to represent the start of the story.  Here's Zeus drawn in that style. It looks really striking. I think that creating them in this style c...

  I started off these thumbnails by drawing out examples of what characters I need on the signs and if they work with the story. I originally decided to only go with 6 but when I drew out the story on them, I realised that the sections with finding and beheading Medusa, was quite short and squished. This was the same with the beginning of the story. So I knew I needed to create another set of thumbnails with extra signs.  I ended up creating these series of thumbnails. My only issue was with the two extra signs I needed an activity for the child to do rather than getting a letter. So, I will create a section to add a sticker on to the map. And also mock up a sign for the children to stand next to. I think the extra signs for the trail make the story go on for longer and allows the illustration on each sign to stand out more- without being too squashed or hectic.  I decided to draw 2 different thumbnails for the front middle and back of the leaflet. Out of these two thumbn...

 For this 12 thumbnail sequence I put the page of the river on to the same page as the Orangutan's fleeing their home to make room for an extra page. However I still think there isn't enough room so going forward I will have to take out another page.  Here's the second thumbnail sequence I did after the previous blog post. I simple'd down the story even more and redrew 12 thumbnail sketches. This time I moved the orangutan being lost on to the thumbnail where the orangutans begins to leave. This was to create more space in the story to make the conclusion a bit longer. I also took out the part where he goes back to his home and there's nothing left. However, I think I might keep this part in.  In this third thumbnail sequence I decided I wanted to keep the part where Orangutan's home is destroyed as I think this is a powerful part of the book. Instead of taking that section out, I decided to remove one of the characters. For these thumbnails I decided to remove ...

Here's my original map of the Italian gardens. I think its simple but effective and when I add in the characters and the different places to go I think it will be just the right amount of contrast from the simplistic background with fun and exciting characters.  I decided to make the trees have depth in this illustration as I believed it was missing something.   Here's a quick mock up of what the map will look like. I created this very quickly to get an idea of the placement of text and how much room I needed to leave for it. I'm glad I did this experiment because I know what I want to do going forward. I will make 2 thumbnails and mock ups of different designs. One with the full map on A4 and the other similar to this but with some more questions on the back. 

  Here's the finished design for Perseus' mum. I wanted her to look different to the other characters because she is mortal whereas the rest are gods, demi-gods or a magical creature. I went with blue to be the colour of her cape. This is a colour mainly used to represent innocence and I thought it went nicely with the story. I made sure to give her flowing sleeves to show that she doesn't use her arms as much. Overall, I think this is a very good character design for her.  Here's the finished character design for King Polydectes. For this I wanted him to be sat in his chair as I will use this illustration of him again throughout the map and signs. I made his skin tone a lot duller compared to other characters to make him look sickly and frail.  Here's my first stone solider, for these I will draw two different soldiers and repeat them in a sequence in the background to an image.  Here's the second stone soldier. I decided to draw him on a side profile to show t...

Thumbnail  When creating these thumbnails, I realised that turning the 24 pages in to 12 was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. The story feels like it jumps from one extreme to another so I will create new thumbnails with characters taken out to make it fit.  Story  1.   1.    High up in the tallest tree in the middle of the jungle, there lived an Orangutan and his mother. They were happy as can be. Every day they spent together, having lots of fun! Swinging through vines and climbing on the branches; it was how they loved to spend their time. That was until...    2.       2.  rumbling had begun. For weeks and weeks, the rumbling would not give in. It would shake all the branches and would make the Orangutans home tremble. Then one day his mother exclaimed “We have move far away from this place!”   3.     3.     Orangutan was upset, he didn’t want to move, but t...