Picture Book Reflection

Jasmine Pointer / / Final, Picture Book, Project Four

At the end of this project, I have been reflecting on my picture book as it stands now. I feel that it has come a long way and become much more fun, bright and exciting. My original design felt quite dull and the original jumper that Speck wore had no distinctive feature, but I improved this to connect the design of the book to the jumper itself which gives the book more of an identity:

Before:

Screen Shot 2016-04-19 at 16.48.05After:

Screen Shot 2016-04-12 at 15.43.48The creation of the character Speck initially took a lot of time as I couldn’t quite find the right style for him, but I am happy with the final result. He looks friendly and likeable, which is important for the main character of a children’s book. The style is hand-drawn/sketch which I think works well in the overall look of the book.

SPECK main improvedI feel there is a consistency in the characters illustrations after the improvements I made, with the exception of the cat ‘Blue’ (which currently sticks out like a sore thumb, as he looks more like a rabbit). Before the deadline, it would be great if I could improve him and implement him into the final book.

Mike mentioned how the eyes of each character were different but I like this about them as there is still a continued style throughout. This feature just highlights the differences between cats as the book is all about differences after all. (Even if cats have similar eyes in real life, this is a children’s book – anything can happen!).

I am happy with my choice to keep the backgrounds a plain colour with no supporting illustrations as I wanted to keep it minimalistic, yet be effective to the story. My favourite page is the double page spread with the rainbow background – especially after my audience feedback where some parents told me this was their child’s favourite page as they could see all the characters and choose their favourite.

Also looking back on my audience feedback, all of the responses told me that the child picked up on the message of the book which makes me see this book as successful as it accomplished the aims and objectives – to let children know they should be proud of their differences!

 

Picture Book: Front & Back Cover Improvements

Jasmine Pointer / / Covers, Picture Book, Project Four

My original cover of Speck the Sphynx Cat was quite dull and boring.

front cover after It had nothing big and ‘wow’ to stand out and attract a 3-7 year old. Therefore my next step was the increase the size of the title.

front cover version 3 This allowed me to also increase Speck and make the overall cover look bigger and eye catching. However, it was still dull and needed more.

After improving Speck so that his jumper now has a rainbow print on it, I decided to use this within the cover. Firstly, I changed the background to white and the text colourful.

front cover version 2I liked this, but I still felt that to a child it wouldn’t make them pick this book up from a selection in a library, due to the white background. So, I took the rainbow look a step further and got this:

 

front cover version 4To me, this looks a lot more like a children’s book. It would catch a child’s eye, as well as an adults. I like the white text over black, I think its more appealing and takes away anything dull from the page.

I carried this design over to the back cover, too where I’ve added a short blurb to go with the quote. However, this isn’t finalised, nor is the overall layout for the back cover.

back cover version 4 Since changing the front cover to the rainbow version, I have been thinking of a way to have the backgrounds on each page. Currently, they are all pale colours and alternate between a red, yellow, blue and green. I thought that with using the rainbow theme on the front, I could continue this throughout. So I changed the background colours to the rainbow colours used. However, these were too bright and vibrant on some pages and did not suit the page well, so I had to make the colour more pale. I then changed the front and back covers to use the same pale colours, but I think I’ll keep Speck’s jumper the same vibrant colours they are.

back cover version 7 front cover version 7Screen Shot 2016-04-12 at 15.43.48

 

 


 

Picture Book: Un-used Illustrations

Jasmine Pointer / / Uncategorised

cat 2 page 8 NO LINEWhilst improving one of the illustrations I removed the line drawing and actually liked how the colour looked on its own. I neatened it up and replaced the lines with a small gap in places. I’m not sure about using this sort of illustration in the final book, as I wanted that hand drawn pencil look, but I thought it would be good to have a go and see what it looked like.

Picture Book: Illustration Improvement

Jasmine Pointer / / Illustrations, Picture Book, Project Four

I’ve started the process of improving my illustrations, and in some cases probably completely changing them. To do this I downloaded some pencil brushes for Photoshop and used a graphics tablet to trace my existing illustrations. This gives more consistency within the line drawing of them and gives a neater finish. I started with Speck, which I traced and changed the colour of the eyes so they’re a bit more pale and also the size slightly:

Before:

SPECK mainAfter:

SPECK main improvedThere is a clear difference between the two and I think it definitely looks much neater after improvement.

New and Improved Speck with jumper:

SPECK jumper improved