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!