Tuesday 7 July 2009

A Tricky Dilemma to Tackle...


Remember Julia's last line: '...but they get them on the way down!' This is a rework of that spread:

Note the cat's now in, plus pictures on the wall and a narrower staircase to before:

But though a funny punchline, we've decided it's just too scary a note to end on: we don't want kids having nightmares.

What to do? Julia suggested combining two earlier spreads to free up an extra page, allowing me space for an additional final picture, to bring things to a happier conclusion.

I toyed with the child rescuing Mum and Dad: a happy end plus a conquering of fears. But though easy to do given 2 images, it wasn't really possible to get from the image above to happiness and safety in just one picture.


So we decided to finish with the child tucked up in bed, now the bears are gone, as above, with his 3 teddies: obviously the same three bears.



It does still save the parents, since the imaginary bears disappear once they reappear as real teddies. I thought I'd show Mum and Dad looking round the door though, just to reassure the reader that everyone is fine!

I thought the cat would likely be thinking about joining in on the comfort...

5 comments:

Joanna Dover said...

wonderful compositions! and a lovely safe happy ending pic.

Kristi Valiant said...

Lynne, I've so enjoyed seeing your sketches and layouts and hearing your thought process through the whole book. Thank you for taking the time to post these - it's quite appreciated. Your compositions have so much energy and childish fun. Can't wait to see the book!

Jill said...

Brilliant - love following your thinking

Lynne the Pencil said...

So pleased you're enjoying it.

It'll be really interesting for me to look back on too, when the book's out. It takes such a long time in between that I forget a lot of the thinking that went into things.

Emily said...

What a treat! You’ve got all sorts of process treats on show!
I really like the perspective down the stairs... very lively!
Cheers!!