Character Designs

Here are some of my sketches for the main characters.

Different types of Wizard Owls

Different styles of Squirrels, Walnut & Acorn

My Story

I have come up with an idea for my storybook and the story is about a squirrel that cares and craves for nothing but his walnut. The area where he lives rarely have walnuts for him therefore he goes crazy the minute he spots a walnut. One day when he managed to get a walnut on the tree, it fell and rolled down in speed of light, faster than the speed he ran. As the forest has many steep areas, the squirrel has to chase after the walnut that was about to be lost in sight. Suddenly, he knocks down a wizard owl. After their conversation, the wizard owl ask him his wish. The squirrel dream of living in a place filled with walnuts. The wizard owl agrees to grant him that wish. However, according to the owl’s magic spell’s book, there are a few things that are needed, for the magic to work.

So the squirrel will have to search and collect those items in the woods, and bring them back to the wizard owl’s lab.

The objectives of this part (task of the squirrel) are

•    To help children to learn and recognise things visually.
•    With pictures to help them remember better
•    To learn new words and also how to spell them
•    To understand what the items are used for

It can be items like carrot, flower, mushroom, cloud, spider, tree and so on…

This is roughly how the concept will work.

The picture of what they need to find will appear at the top corner, one stage at a time, and there will be a few picture options on screen. The children will then select the matching pictures and the pronunciation, spelling and explanation of what that is will appear one by one. This will continue one item at a time.

After the squirrel managed to collect all the items on the list, he heads back to look for the owl. After throwing all the items (One by one-like a revision for the children one last time in case they forget) into the magical pot, the magical smoke fills the entire place and squirrel suddenly ends up in a factory full of walnuts!

How to write a Children’s Story

I have also did some research on How to write a Children’s Story. Based on my research, there are a few steps.

Firstly, brainstorm for ideas by looking at your favorite book for inspiration. The good thing about children’s story is that it does not need to be realistic as children appreciates and enjoys such absurdities like fantasies. 

Secondly develop your characters. Interesting characters are needed to produce a good and nice story. Younger children enjoy simple stories whereas older children prefer interesting and slightly complicated plots. 

For children around age 3 to 5 (which is the age group I am intending to do my interactive book for) use sentence that are easy and simple for them to understand and an explanation of the motivation behind the actions shown in that page is required. The themes that can be included are adventures, getting lost and finding their way back, being brave, going to bed, sharing and telling the truths (those with moral values), learning how to spell and more.

Writing a story for a younger age level does not require to have a traditional plot however others will need a properly planned story structure. The most important thing is to have a an understanding of the whole story from beginning to the end and how the characters will interact and evolve. It is good to have a conflict or obstacle that the character has to resolve and a happy ending.

Start with introducing the characters with descriptions of physical and personality traits, their surroundings, and those with whom they come in contact. Create a problem or conflict. This could be between two people, an internal conflict, or one in which the main character overcomes an obstacle in the outside world. Next, write the climax of the story, which will include the main characters coming face to face with the conflict. Finally, show how your characters resolve the problem and what happens next.

References for Design Style

Here are some Illustrators artworks and the style that I’m interested for my storybook.

BelictaTelbarco

 



Duncan Beedie

 

Michael Mantel

 

 




Steve Dorado

 

 




Tim Bradford

 

Research on Children's Story Book & Children's Apps

I have look into some children’s storybook and children apps at the bookstore, and also from the internet for reference, and the design styles from different Illustrators that might be suitable for my storybook. Among some of them are:

 
 

Research samples of Interactive Book

Here are a few interesting interactive books that I've found which are existing out there.

Little Red Riding Hood Interactive Book, the newest version of the classic children's story!

A Short & Simple Animation w Adobe Edge

I did a simple animation, which ends in a glance called 'The Bumpy Mushroom' to tryout Adobe Edge. Turns out it was direct and pretty easy to use.

I illustrate my characters which is a mushroom and a ground tunnel in Illustrator before importing them into Edge. I animated this weird bumpy mushroom to go into the ground and pops up again with different speed and pattern as if each hole in the ground has different gravity force.

Here are some of the processes in Edge.

Here is the video:

Decisions decisions...

We were given the freedom to choose what we wanna do for this semester and I have two options in mind, either an interactive storybook or a game. I think the interactive book can help people who doesnt like to read to read. It also enhance the readers overall experience and it makes them remember and understand that particular story better. Game can also allow users to learn something instead of just passing time, which is what i intend to do if I am choosing game.

After looking into it, there are a few softwares that I could use to make the game without any coding like Stencyl, Scirra or Game Salad. As for the interactive book, iAuthor, demibooks or interactbuilder. There's also HTML5 and Adobe Edge to help me especially on the animation part.

 


I have looked into some of the games made using Stencyl http://www.stencyl.com/stencyl/showcase,
Scirra http://www.scirra.com/construct2/demos http://www.scirra.com/arcade and it looked pretty interesting.

I still have alot to learn and tutorials to watch before I can start doing, also to think of a good story and content.