Character Sheet and Style Experimentation

Character and Style sheet consisting of Laika, the Sputnik 2 (her space ship) the Moon and Earth.

Composition Development - Text and Colour

Furthered onto experimentation of colour palette through mock ups.

Developed thumbnails, in particular focusing on flow throughout composition and text reinforcing story told.

Composition Development

Character Developments - Colour Concepts

Character Developments

I focused on my dog character Laika having a nicer character silhouette. I also looked closely into what she wore when sent into space.

Character Developments

Potential Colour Pallettes

Some potential colour schemes I have put together. As the earth, moon and space play such a prominent part, I focused on dark blues and greens which worked well together for the basis of each pallette. As it is for a childrens book, bright colours are often desired to bring more excitement to the illustrations.

   

Initial Storyboard Concepts

Storyboard 1

Storyboard 2

Two initial diverse approaches displaying varying options for the page compositions. I have split the story into 5 double page spreads, allowing for either A4 or square cropped sizing.

Initial Character Concepts

I have decided to have a main character that tells the given story in a fun way to the audience. As children learn better from animals, I have chosen to illustrate an anthropomorphic animal that also has relevancy to space; hence Laika the dog or Sam the space Monkey. 

These are some initial style explorations, and I will next explore with costume.

Story Analysis

Artist Model: Heath McKenzie (Character Deisgn)

Similar to Shepard, Heath McKenzie often anthropomorphisizes his animal characters giving them clothes and human qualities. The soft curves and soft colours of his pieces give a sense of pleasantness and child foolishness. 

Artist Model: Ernest Shepard (Character Design)

Shepard is an illustrator, best known for his Winnie the Pooh designs and book illustrations. The minimization and simplicity of his animal forms are what I love most about his illustrations. Anthropomorphic animals are often used throughout children literature as a form of fantasy  to educate them about important lessons. Winnie and his friends hold a sense of innocence and cuteness, as if children themselves making them easily relateable for that demographic.

Research: Animals in Space

Before humans actually went into space, one of the prevailing theories of the perils of space flight was that humans might not be able to survive long periods of weightlessness. For several years, there had been a serious debate among scientists about the effects of prolonged weightlessness. American and Russian scientists utilized animals - mainly monkeys, chimps and dogs - in order to test each country's ability to launch a living organism into space and bring it back alive and unharmed.

Before any human ever went into orbit went Laika the space dog. She launched aboard the Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 in November, 1957. Laika and two other dogs trained on land for space travel by living in contained environments and learning to eat nutrient-rich gel — the food that they (and later humans) would eat in space. According to Russian reports, Laika lived for one week aboard the spacecraft before she died.  These reports encouraged scientists and government leaders about the viability of sending humans into space.

Sam was one of the most famous monkeys of the space program. He launched on December 4, 1959 in a cylindrical capsule on the Mercury spacecraft atop a Little Joe rocket — his mission: to test the launch escape system. After one minute of flight, the Mercury capsule separated from the launch vehicle sending Sam to an altitude of 51 miles before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. Sam was safely recovered several hours later and returned to the colony where he lived and trained prior to his orbital adventures. He would live there for more than 20 more years until 1982.

While the Russians sent dogs into orbit during early animal-space research, Americans chose to send chimpanzees instead because of the close similarities that they share with human beings. Observations made during these missions would allow greater understanding of how humans might react physically and psychologically to life in microgravity and upon return. Ham experienced nearly seven minutes of weightlessness during a 16-minute flight. He returned fatigued and dehydrated but otherwise in good shape. Ham’s journey to space was considered a great success because he made it home safely, unlike his Russian counterpart, Laika the space dog. His mission paved the way for the successful launch of America’s first human astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, Jr. in May, 1961.

In October 1963, French scientists launched into space a cat for the first time in history, their goal was to better understand launch and reentry conditions. Felix was selected, tested, trained and conditioned, only to escape prior to launch. After Felix escaped, he was replaced with Félicette (Félicette is the feminine of Felix). She launched on the French Véronique AG1 rocket from Algerian Sahara desert rocket base, experienced a 15 minute flight to an altitude of 130 miles and returned safely to Earth with a successful parachute drop.

Artist Model: See Inside Space by Katie Daynes and Peter Allen

Peter Allen similar to Newman, entices children to learn about space in a fun and visual way.  Allen's style reflects a more comic based approach, through his bold outlines, quirky characters and use of text to display sound. Similar to Newman, he uses flat colours with subtle textures and gradients.

Story Analysis and Artist Model: Professor Astro Cat's Frontiers of Space by Dr Walliman and Ben Newman

Newman takes a more graphic approach to his book illustrations. This book he illustrated provides a fun and visual experience for what is normally considered a text driven scientific topic of space science. He uses a unified flat colour aesthetic with subtle textures  throughout his designs, reflective of the popular current design trend of flat design. This also provides an easy layout for their target demographic of children aged 9-11 to understand and learn. Professor Astro Cat acts as a teacher, stating scientific facts in terms children could understand and demonstrating them. He has mouse sidekick, and both of them are present on all but a few of the double page spreads. Majority of his imagery are diagrams, adaptable to multiple composition variations making text easier to position. The boom reflects an encyclopedia of science, translated visually and written in a sense that children would understand easily and enjoy.