Monday 14 February 2011

Baby Hedgehog's 1st Kiss...


You've probably worked out by now that Baby Goes Baaaa! is slung on an alphabet theme. This is secondary though to the phonics element: sounds that Mum or Dad can practice with Baby (shown to be very important in early learning). Finding a sound for each letter of the alphabet simply gave the book structure.

The sleeping polar bears is the final page: 'Baby goes Zzzzzz...'. The page opposite is split between two images: at the top, X is illustrated with kissing hedgehogs and Y, 'Baby goes Yum Yum!', is a panda, tucking in.


I made a start on these on Saturday morning, to make up for not getting down to it on Thursday, after my teaching. I worked on them together, to guarantee they would work well together in the final book.

I changed the panda's head and eye patch shapes a little, and made his ears flatter. I think he's looking a lot younger and cuter than on my rough, which I wasn't 100% happy with:


The hedgehogs were a little daunting - I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the spines. I didn't want them to be too cartoonish.

I did a search and found this photograph on Google Images which was really helpful. In my mind's eye, I had thought their bodies were brown too, so it was a relief to discover they were white: much less 'heavy' and better for contrast with their backs.

I decided to build up the spines in different colours of brown and grey. I'm not sure if I will attempt the white tips or not. We'll see:


10 comments:

Victoria Stitch said...

i love his little red trousers!

cassia said...

Blimmin' heck. It's coming along isn't it? You'll be finished by the end of the week at this rate!

i think the white tips would look really nice.

Shayla said...

OMG !!! Your illustrations are so beautiful, I actually love the new changed you made to the panda...even though both look really good. I like to see your before and after, I can't wait until it is completed!

Katie W said...

Strewth lynne! You work so fast. That energy just bounces off the page. Fabulous and fascinating stuff. Can I have some of what you're having?! I'm a plodding procrastinator I'm afraid - did manage to drag myself over to flickr and put some stuff up for first time ever!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/katieweymouth/

Yasmin said...

these new characters are being very beautiful.. I like the way a lot that the for the this.. he doesn't seem hard.. it seems soft.
I am curious to see the small concluded panda.
me of the will of to hug and to press him.
hugs,
yasmin

Vivien said...

Lively and always interesting illustrations, and your pastels suggest fur so well. And I absolutely love the picture of the lamb on roller skates! - really made me laugh.

Windsongs and Wordhoards said...

It's really good to see your working process on these, from story boards to roughs to the finished illustrations...
It's looking like a really lovely book with such great characters!

Bethany said...

Happy Valentine's Day! The Hedgehogs seem to be celebrating it! I adore hedgehogs and was thrilled to see you include them in this book. They could have a book all their own in my opinion. And you are spot on with the Panda. Perfect!

Caroline said...

Fab - this book is positively zooming along. I'm really enjoying seeing your characters come to life!

Jon Davis said...

Great stuff, interesting to see the comparison with the roughs.
I really like the panda, he's really really sweet.
I think you were right with the change of shape of his head and eyes :)