no-dogs, new stories and a prize draw!

"No-dogs allowed" The new children's book app that I illustrated and animated, written by Phil Fryer, and published by Tizio Publishing, is making good progress and I am really pleased with how sweet the test version looks and how vibrant the illustrations look when viewed on the iPad rather than on paper. As usual the magicians at Tizio Publishing are doing a fantastic job bringing everything to life!

Now that most of my part in creating the "No-dogs allowed" app is done, time has come to start thinking of the next app. Tizio Publishing and I decided to turn my highly commended MacMillan prize 2011 picture book, "Gone Fishing!", into an app. I am really excited about this, because next to the usual fun we have creating the ideas and animations for the app, we agreed we want to make this one extra special. This means that before even starting the usual brainstorm, I am going to really look into all the possibilities with an iPad and see if we can come up with some new, creative and original ideas to suit the story and the illustrations. The fun part about that is that I get to play a lot. Yay!

If there are specific things that you enjoy in children's book apps and would like to see more of, or if you have ideas that you would love to see in a new app, I would love to hear about it. You can leave your suggestions and ideas as comments on this blog and I will do a lottery draw from all suggestions received by Sunday the 18th of September noon UK time. The prize will be an original piece of art work from "Fierce Grey Mouse" and the runner up will get a limited edition, signed, giclee (fine art) print from one of the illustrations from "Finn's Paper hat". Looking forward to reading all your ideas!

What else has been happening? I took "Poppy's Feather", the new story I am working on, to my writers' group last week to get their feedback on the story as it stands at the moment. The other writers in the group really enjoyed the story and the sketches I had added as temporary illustrations as part of the story is told through the images. They loved the 2 characters of the chicken and the dog. They did see one problem with the story though. They felt that there were 2 distinct parts to the story and that they somehow need to come together better. Or alternatively, that there actually 2 stories in there! The story of Enid teasing Poppy and the story of Enid's feather being stuck on Poppy's nose. 

Although very simple stories (the intended age group is 2 -5), there is enough potential in both of them. So some decisions to be made; will it be 1 story that I need to merge better or will I split it into 2, and actually there is a 3rd option to go into a new direction with the story and forget part of what I have done so far. That last option I always find very difficult. You get sort of attached to your stories and sketches and it is so hard to discard pieces despite knowing that it will make something better in the end.

Decisions, decisions...

New stories

Finally found a few moments to develop the new children's story I have been working on the last few weeks, a bit further. It is such a pleasure writing and sketching for it!  The story is about Poppy, my old whippet, who gets Enid's (my old chicken) feather stuck on her nose and has lots of trouble getting it off her nose! It is a very simple story aimed at toddlers and very young children (2 - 5) and is based on a real incident where Poppy got a pigeon feather on her nose and got herself in all sorts of twists and scrapes to get it off! Here a few of the first sketches that I played with:

The book is far from finished, but I have set out the structure of the story over the standard picture book amount of pages and feel it is now ready to go for feedback with the writers' group (MFWG) I am a member of. With their feedback I can write the final story and start making proper illustrations. It will be so much fun drawing and painting Enid and Poppy! I can't wait!

You might wonder what the real Poppy and Enid look like. Well, here a few pictures for you:

here is Enid together with her recently deceased sister Emily

And this is the lovely Poppy standing in the Lemon Verbana

And so that she does not feel left out, here a picture of Roxy dog, Poppy's young step sister. So far I have not found an excuse to add her in the story. So maybe one day she'll get her own story!

What else has been happening? I have been working hard on the cartoons for Strictly Organised and on a range of greeting card designs. And together with Tizio Publishing we're putting the finishing touches together for the new app: "No dogs allowed" written by Phil Fryer. 

I'm also trying to understand more about marketing children's book apps. How do you get people to find your lovely apps? The reviews for both Fierce Grey Mouse and Finn's Paper Hat have been great (see blogpost dated: 21 August 2011). Two that I am especially proud of are the reviews by Australian MacWorld and the reviews by Giggle Apps. And of course by Fierce Grey Mouse appearing in the Telegraph! Those reviews, together with frequent Twitter and Facebook updates, have been very good for marketing the apps. However, I feel there must be something more that we can do to get attention to them. What is the secret? Well, my quest to answer this question continues and if you do have any tips you'd like to share I'd be delighted to read them! In return I will start gathering all information on marketing apps and when I have a good solid amount of it, I will promise to write a blogpost about it!