Past week, I force myself to get some time to sketch some scenes (they are pretty rough – although in the paper they look much better than in the scans) for Candice, my upcoming (who knows when) animated book. The lines below are just my current workflow. Hope it helps some of you reading these postings.

I am working in a linear mode. The moment I close a scene concept (the action and the text supporting it), I start to plan what is going to appear in there, the animations and interactions supporting it and the background sounds. Final text is almost complete and I hope to use my American friend and reviser to record the narration sound (she doesn’t know it yet ). Below, the original sketches for the first four scenes. Enjoy!

Scene 1 – Candice is introduced

In this scene, the reader will meet Candice, as she plays in front her house. As you can notice, she doesn’t have many friends to play with, besides her book of spells. I drew a few house ideas but, at the end, this one (I sketched this looking at a pool slider at Disney’s Vero Beach Resort) was selected, as a homage to the place I sketched it. Things that are going to happen here includes a moving seesaw, door that open with a click, smoke from the chimney, and a book that bounces.

Scene 2 (this scan is simply horrible) – Candice’s “lab” (how do you call a witch workplace?)

Readers will play with Candice’s spell ingredients and meet her crazy broom. Cat clock moves, books try to get out of the shelves, spider gets up and down, the broom cleans the room. Poor little Candice.

Scene 3 – Candice wants to fly. Her broom not.

The little witch wants to fly her broom. However, the broom doesn’t like the idea very much. As a powered paraglider pilot myself, should I suggest her to switch her way of transportation? Anyways, clicking the objects will reveal some surprises to the readers.

Scene 4 – Dreaming awake

Her dream is to attend the witches fair. But with no broom, she can’t get there!

I have been out of this blog for a long time due lots of work all around (which I am not complaining at all). Although I will be still very busy, I decided to start a new project called Candice (no, it is not a new baby!).

I want to use Kwik in a real project so, I decided to write and illustrate an original story for children. My idea is to transform it in an interactive book, publishing at Apple, Android, Amazon and (hopefully) Nook stores. Part of the files will also be available as a free download to Kwik users (I strong believe this is the best way to learn about new features).

For this first posting, I will share some of the characters studies and the main plot of the story. Basically it is about a young witch apprentice, called Candice. She needs to attend a witch fair but she can’t make her broom to fly. She starts a journey in search of some magical ingredients, meeting some new friends in the way.

For the little witch, I sketched a few different body shapes (tall, short, “chubby”, thin, etc):

Although the “judges” (my family) selected the tall witch…

…I opted by the short one, mostly because later in the story she will need to fit in a small space. Also, a short girl was always my vision since the beginning (as the author, illustrator, editor and publisher, final word is mine, right?

Considering I needed to attend a workshop from SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), and I needed a simple animation to show off Kwik, I quickly draw it in Flash (not many details yet) and use it in the animation I showed:

For the horse (it is a toy, made of wood), I tried a few samples (probably will pick the second one as it matches more with Candice’s drawing style):

For the snail, just two samples but, the family winner is the second one, as it is a homage to an original drawing our oldest soon (he is almost 19 now) drew when he was very young (you know moms’, right? They keep everything):

If you want to see the first animation test, check the complementary posting, available at www.kwiksher.com/blog

Again, thanks for your friendship and interest. Ideas? Just leave a comment!

Alex