For the Parkroyal project, our task was to redraw characters created by children from a primary school. Next, illustrate a two-page comic and a book mark based on these characters.
My first creature was Bubbles, done by Hettie. It is a big creature made of bubbles living on trees in the rainforest. Its power is squirting water fast.
The thing I like the most about this character is the fact that it has a good colour palette. I am not sure if the original artist of this creature picked these colours purposely or by accident, but it was an excellent choice of secondary colours. I will keep the colours without any changes when redrawing this character.
As the name suggests the character is made of variations in size bubbles. It is something I would like to embrace by adding some shade, tint to add dimension to the bubbles and rounding the shapes.
I began the process of redrawing the character with three different sketches of Bubbles. Each of them had a different size bubble and body. I was testing what could be changed and how much could be altered in the design to keep it easy to recognize. Some of the changes I made were to make the head proportional to the body by making the body a bit bigger. I made the eyes bigger and the ears shorter to give it a kind look.
Some kids said they would like to see their creatures be realistic, so I tried to add some dimension by shading the character in pencil.
I kept the colour palette the same as the original picture because it was already well-picked.
After finishing redrawing the character, I draw a small picture for the bookmark. I thought it to make the bookmarks feature the characters showing their powers off like pokemon cards.
My original idea was to add shading to the characters, but I realised that I may not have enough time to shade all the bubbles on every page. I decided to keep everything in flat colours to match.
My second creature was Zoran, a black and red turtle with powers of fire horns. The only problem I had with designing characters was the colour palette of the turtle. The colours were too dark and were completely covering the lineart. To correct it I attempted to lighten the colours.
Although the character looked a bit evil I didn't want to put one of the characters at a disadvantage by being an antihero, so I tried to make it look friendly by making the shell round and a wide smile.
Story Ideas
My first idea for the story was to make Bubbles save the rainforest from the fire. I heard the children from a primary school recently learnt about the rainforest, so I think a comic about the rainforest would be something that will interest them.
My second idea was to make Bubbles the protagonist and Zoran the antagonist of the story. I quickly realised that's not the best idea because kids may feel hurt to see their characters fight. I also didn't want any violence in the comic as my target audience was 10 years old. I wanted my comic to be educational and tell a story about friendship and helping each other in order to save the rainforest.
Script
Page 1
Panel 1
Establishing shot on the forest. Bubbles sitting one the tree and relaxing.
Panel 2
Animals running out of the forest.
Animals- BUBBLES WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Panel 3
Bubbles looking at the thick cloud of smoke coming out of the forest.
Panel 4
Full body shot Bubbles jumping down from a tree.
Panel 5
Mid shot Bubbles running to help.
Bubbles-It’s time to make some bubbles.
Page 2
Panel 1
Turtle surrounded by a fire.
Zoran- HELP!
Panel 2
Close up Bubbles using his power to put down the fire.
Panel 3
Fire blows into Bubbles and Zoran’s face as it is too strong to put out with water.
Bubbles-Oh no the fire is too strong.
Panel 4
Full body shot of Zoran activating his fire horns power.
Zoran-How about we fight fire with fire?
Panel 5
Zoran quickly runs around to make fire stop form spreading. Bubbles trying to catch up with him.
Bubbles- WAIT FOR ME! I GOT SHORT LEGS!
Page 3
Panel 1
Zoran putting fire around the fire to stop it from spreading.
Panel 2
Bubbles and Zoran looking at the burned forest. Fire stopped.
Zoran- Oh well, at least there is no fire.
Panel 3
Full body shot Bubbles activating his waterpowers.
Panel 4
Water splash.
Panel 5
Water watering the ground and make new flowers growing.
Panel 6
Zoran and Bubbles looking at the green forest and high five
I never drew a children's book, and I came across a problem in terms of choosing an appropriate style for a children's book. I found it hard to tell what was too much or too little when it came to designing all the backgrounds in the comic. I didn't want my comic to look like an illustrated book for 3 years old, but I also didn't want to make my designs too overwhelming and look like books for a bit older children.
To find out the right style for my comic, I looked into children's books and found an artist called Martina Terzi. She is a book illustrator and her style was what I was looking for. Her illustrations looked soft with a lot of curved and wavy lines, but together they did not look like childish illustrations.
Examples of Martina Terzi's artwork
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I tried to mimic her style by drawing trees and bushes as wavy round shapes. This added this gentle aesthetic to my artwork. I also created a mood board with a colour palette of the rainforest in my comic.
I successfully created a three-page comic about these creatures saving the rainforest teaching the kids about teamwork and saving the planet. My comic and character design were then printed alongside other students' work to create a volume and were given to children. I think I used appropriate style and content for the children's age as they loved everyone's work. I was happy to learn new styles and techniques to approach younger audiences as my work usually targets an older audience. This knowledge will help me to target a larger group of audience in the future when thinking of potentially publishing my own work.
Looking back at the comic, I think I could pick colours that are a bit more washed out for the background so the characters would pop out. Otherwise, I am happy with this project.
Moodboard
