Creating concept ideas

Creating concept ideas

Daisy Jackson / 09/02/2022

Since I have created most of my character designs and came to a conclusion on next steps (betwen two different art styles), I thought it would be great as a next step to concentrate on what my actual concept will be for my illustrations. 

Due to my target audience being a younger audience (still unsure exactly on the age bracket), I thought it would be great to play around with perspectives and make it interesting for the viewer.

For my first set of ideas, I played around with the idea of personifying animals - making them talk and so on. Since Marie Curie's husband unfortunately passed away due to being run over by a horse and carriage, I thought it would be interesting to look at the perspective of the horse! This tells the story in such an interesting way and hopefully would make the child laugh. 

Here is what I have so far:

To explain this concept...

I was inspired by the book Matt showed us called 'There are cats in this book' by Viviane Schwarz. 

I loved how interactive her work was! The way the speech bubbles were flaps you could move and how the cats were speaking to you like they knew you were there. This is great for children and I definitely felt inspired by it!

My concept idea followed this storyline:

Front page - Jail bars would be cut out so that you could see the page behind - as though the horse is in prison. I would also add play on words such as 'HorseGuards' which is play on words. 

First page - Featured the horse. Speech bubble on basic page saying 'I didn't mean to do it'. Second speech bubble pulls out and says 'It all happened so fast'.

Second page - The detective with a magnifying glass. Speech bubble (possibly pops out) says 'Tell me what you did tough guy'. Alternative idea speaks to the reader.

Third page - Dramatic angle of horse sweating. Speech bubble on basic page saying 'Uh..uhh..' and then a flip out speech bubble from the detective saying 'Spit it out'.

Fourth page - Flash backs, using different layouts to make everything more visually interesting.

Fifth page - Detective asks whether anybody saw.

Sixth page, seventh page and eighth page - All focus on Marie Curie.

My main concern with this idea is that it focuses TOO much on the horse and not enough about Marie Curie. However, it is difficult to manage a great concentration on purely Marie Curie when you're looking at the perspective of the horse. I will definitely refine this idea after generating more ideas. I will even create example books so I understand my layout more and can refine it. 

15/02/2022

Today I created another concept while waiting for my tutorial. After speaking with Izzie she helped me come up with a new idea that is quite different to my recent. I acknowledge that in my survey, the results concluded that I do not have to appeal to the adult audience, however a percentage of my survey did (just not the dominating part). I feel like it just depends how I do this and if I am still appealing to my target audience.

My idea for this concept is regarding Marie Curie's body and how it is still radioactive. I understand radioactivity does not burn you, instead it burns you from the inside. However, with children's shows, illustrations, books etc, everything is often exaggerated. In this case, we have Marie Curie walking through the park. Where she has already walked is on fire whereas her destination is perfect. She begins to pick up a flower that starts to burn. She is completely oblivious that she is destroying everything with her radioactive body. The final panel shows Marie Curie going to an orphanage. Now, this is definitely dark humour. 

I gained inspiration from this clip of a Spiderman cartoon (click on the image for the video):

As a child, I would have laughed at this without understanding the joke fully. This is because I would be distracted by the fact Spiderman revealed his true identity. Instead, adults would catch onto this joke.

For my joke regarding Marie Curie, if this was too much then I would replace 'orphanage' with a stable to fit in with the whole story regarding her husband being killed by a horse and carriage. However, readers may not understand this reference which would ruin the joke entirely. 

Here is my idea on paper:

20/02/2022

For today, I tasked myself of thinking of another concept idea. This time, I used the idea suggested by Matt. His idea involved creating a flip book and playing with the idea of my character design where Marie Curie is a skeleton that is radioactive. In regards to what I actually use for each panel of the flip book, I wasn't exactly sure. I felt as though I could maybe tell her life story while the children mix and match her body parts. This would be both educational and fun. 

Overall though, I do not like this idea as much. After speaking to my family members for their feedback, they mentioned how children love flip books due to the interactive nature. I will more than likely make a protype of this so I can visualise it. 

Here is my idea: