CBI class - storyboards

Following on my from last post about my children's book illustration class, here are my storyboards. I decided not to do the story that was given to us, but one that was given to me by a publisher to see if I would want to illustrate it. That was a few months ago, so my guess is it's one of those dangled carrots, but just in case, it's nice to sneak in a bit of "work" and most importantly get feedback on it. (I've only ever illustrated one fiction story which was self-published and boy did I need some feedback on that one!)

Because the story is unpublished and not mine, I am not going to post the actual words here, but instead a synopsis of each spread. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. It is only 16 pages (thank goodness!) The story is basically about an elf and it is quite a visual story, for instance: "Elf (let's called her Emmy) puts on her bright blue polka dotted scarf and looks for her green and orange gloves. Can you help her find her green and orange gloves?" Unfortunately, this last sentence which questions the reader really limits the illustrations. It makes it into a bit of a Where's Waldo thing, and because I'm trying to have the illos enhance the words, not duplicate them, I have largely ignored those sentences. Hey, this is an excercise after all, I should be able to have fun with it right??

So, here are the storyboards - Very rough!! (the horizontal lines are where the words will go)



Emmy got dressed in her stripey shirt and purple pants and sat back on her big bed
I wanted the image to be basically all bed.



She yawned and said "where are my stripey socks to go with my stripey shirt?"
Emmy in silhouette against the window, can see a bit of snow outside.



Emmy put on her stripey socks and elf shoes and looked for her polka dot gloves.
I'll probably put a lot more shoes in. It'll be fun coming up with elf shoe designs!



She put on her gloves and looked for her sleigh with bells that go "chink, chink."
Nice to set the scene, and to see her look out the window from outside, as we saw it from inside before.



Emmy finds the sleigh and looks for her spotty sausage dog
I would like to do the "chink, chink" bits with collage. Also not sure if maybe we need to see her face here.



She hooks up sausage dog to the sleigh and says, "go, go!"
Again Go, go with collage.



They speed off into the night



They come home and Emmy says "where is my big fat bed"? Yawn.... zzzzz.....
A bit of a twist here as I would like there to be the possibility in the reader's mind that she dreamed it all - with sleigh bed and bells, book of stripey shirt and stuffed sausage dog. Will have to make these elements quite obvious I think. I like that it starts and ends with the bed, like bookends!

So it'll be really interesting to get some feedback on this! Can't wait- Saturday can't come fast enough!