2020.08.19
First sketches of my characters
2020.08.28
Research on how to storyboard, build narrative worlds that make sense, and build mock copies
2020.09.18
Slowly building out my whimsical world. My illustrations done on Adobe Fresco of tooth-shaped homes
2020.10.15
The story slowly develops. My characters will be superheroes in the mouth. Toothpaste hair is an identifying characteristic. Their tools of choice will be floss and toothbrush. Their names are still not finalized. I wanted it to be a dental pun and was tinkering with "Fleur" for fluoride and "Max" for maxillary.
Sketched on Notability for the iPad.
2020.10.16
First attempt at a possible spread for a 8"x8" picture book. I had a pretty decent understanding of the world that I was building, the problems that the characters must overcome but difficulty with the pacing of the story. And although my illustration skills were pretty decent, it took way too long for me to render this single spread. Moving forward, I wanted to hire someone who could help my artistic vision come to life - in a more timely manner, but the capacity to draw rather accurately what I envisioned would definitely be helpful. Drawn on Adobe Fresco on the iPad.
2021.02.16
Introducing the villain of the story. This is a character of my own creation, a jock-soda bottle - note the big arms and scrawny legs! Further research into children's picture books showed the importance of pacing and the difficulty of incorporating many characters into one book. Adding yet another character to the story made me reconsider just how many superheroes were feasble to add.
2021.02.20
Potential spreads. Hoverboard toothpaste bottles, maturation of the tooth-shaped cities.
2022.04.06
After a long hiatus, I completed the storyboarding and sent all my spreads to my illustrator for rough drafts. Here I assess whether his illustrations match my vision for the story. We ended up removing the tethering from the string to make it look more like floss and less like a rope.
2022.06.04
After multiple iterations and back and forth with the illustrator, we begun the process of coloring the pages. The location of the words on the page are not yet finalized.
2022.06.04
Coming soon to an Amazon near you! Currently finding the perfect font for the story. Also teaching myself how to use Adobe InDesign to complete the layouting. My only experience with InDesign is from my time doing Yearbook club in high school. It's surprising how much you actually do remember from experiences like that.