The Creative Spark Preview| 00:00 | There is a wide-open opportunity, in my mind,
to create children's literature that really
| | 00:07 | takes advantage of the iPad format.
(music playing)
| | 00:14 | This is going to be very slow
animations, maybe six frames per second.
| | 00:17 | Everything is just going to have very, very
gentle movements, more like a painting that's
| | 00:21 | come to life.
| | 00:22 | So, as I think about the composition, I also
have to think about what are some things that
| | 00:27 | can happen, and what are some ways we can
bring the young reader into the story to affect
| | 00:32 | the storyline?
| | 00:33 | What is he going to touch and play with?
| | 00:35 | It's the way that you think about the flow
and the story arc that really makes all the
| | 00:39 | difference, and I can keep that flow, and
it's all really tight in this environment.
| | 00:44 | So I decided that I wanted to
launch my own publishing house.
| | 00:48 | It's about seeing an opportunity for creative
people who have a similar vision that I have,
| | 00:54 | to create really interesting work.
| | 00:56 | The whole idea of children switch to the iPad
is just magical and different and it's wide open.
| | 01:01 | (music playing)
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Stacey Williams-Ng, Interactive Book Designer| 00:00 | When illustrating for a
children's book, the pictures are really telling the
| | 00:05 | story for kids.
(music playing)
| | 00:11 | To me, it's really more about trying to get
a perfect line or a perfect gesture so that
| | 00:15 | I can tell a story.
| | 00:18 | There's a wide-open opportunity, in my
mind, to create literature for the iPad,
| | 00:24 | ro create children's literature that really
takes advantage of the iPad format. It's not
| | 00:29 | just shoved into the dimensions of an iPad;
it's using that technology to tell the story better.
| | 00:35 | (music playing)
| | 00:40 | I am Stacey Williams-Ng and here we are,
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in my home studio.
| | 00:51 | I have found a job where it pays to know how
to paint, it pays to know how to run a business,
| | 00:57 | and it pays to know how to
design a page and deal with type.
| | 01:01 | All of those things are happening in this
profession right now, and I feel like I am
| | 01:05 | at the center of that right now.
| | 01:10 | I went from a kid who wanted to draw to an
older kid who wanted to be a painter, whose
| | 01:19 | parents said, "Don't be a painter, you should
be a graphic designer, so you can make some money."
| | 01:23 | And then I went to graphic design school,
and then I thought I discovered illustration.
| | 01:28 | "Hey, now I can paint again."
| | 01:30 | And then my own lecturer said, "Oh, don't do
illustration. There is no money in illustration."
| | 01:35 | And he probably mean it as an off-the-cuff
comment, but it changed to the entire direction
| | 01:39 | of my young life, and I went into graphic
design, thinking, okay, now I know what I am going to do.
| | 01:45 | I am going to do logos and posters and
brochures and things like that, and then I found the
| | 01:50 | opportunity to do multimedia.
| | 01:52 | And I just keep getting sort of
knocked off course all the time.
| | 01:58 | In 2010, I was on a little bit of a sabbatical,
doing illustrations, just doing some freelance
| | 02:05 | work, and my friend who knew me from my web
design days in Chicago contacted me because
| | 02:12 | it was 2010 and the iPad had
just come out and they had an idea.
| | 02:16 | They were doing a start-up software to use
the iPad for children's books, and that got
| | 02:21 | me very interested.
| | 02:22 | (music playing)
| | 02:23 | On a project I am working on right now--
it's a children's book about a boy who goes to the
| | 02:34 | opera with his granddad--the
setting almost becomes a character.
| | 02:43 | Today at the opera we actually got to see
how the seats are arranged, and it's actually
| | 02:48 | way better than what I imagined because
it gives a lot more room for typography.
| | 02:52 | There is no character design for this
lady, but every kid that lands on this page
| | 02:58 | is going to check out this lady.
| | 03:00 | Children are wonderful art connoisseurs,
and that's why I really like doing children's
| | 03:04 | book, because a kid will look at your
painting and look at your painting and find every
| | 03:09 | little thing about it.
| | 03:12 | This is my audience. They are
extremely demanding, but I love them.
| | 03:16 | That's why I try and make every animation
on the page meaningful, to reinforce something
| | 03:22 | that's really happening in the story.
| | 03:24 | So, if grandpa is snoozing, his head dipping
down and snoozing is really where our attention
| | 03:29 | needs to lie.
| | 03:32 | This painting, as it exists, will have no boy
in it and no head on grandpa, because it's
| | 03:38 | only a background.
| | 03:41 | It gets photographed or scanned as a layer,
and so what I'll have to add later, there will
| | 03:46 | be several frames of Luigi and Grandpa's
head and those all get cut out in Photoshop and
| | 03:52 | they become layers, and
they come into the scene.
| | 03:54 | (music playing)
| | 04:01 | The animations themselves, the sounds, and
the effects, and all the interactivity is
| | 04:07 | created on the iPad and
not on a desktop computer.
| | 04:12 | This is a page from a book that I am working
on, a storybook app called A Troop Is a Group of Monkeys.
| | 04:18 | I am actually creating an app using an
app, and I am getting instant feedback.
| | 04:23 | It's a really tactile experience for design.
| | 04:27 | So as I think about the composition, I also
have to think about, what are some things that
| | 04:31 | can happen and what are some ways we can
bring the reader, our young reader, into the story
| | 04:36 | to affect the story line?
| | 04:38 | What is he going touch and
play with to see things happen?
| | 04:41 | And I think that makes it a very special
kind of device and a very special kind of device
| | 04:46 | for consuming literature, because
literature is such a personal thing.
| | 04:49 | Good to see you again! Working with
Demibooks Studio and seeing the work that was coming
| | 04:54 | in started to inspire me about
going out there and finding better work.
| | 05:00 | All these thoughts are rising through my
head about how much better the stories could be
| | 05:04 | and only finding just a precious
few that I found really moving.
| | 05:08 | So I decided that I wanted to
launch my own publishing house.
| | 05:12 | That's how the Little
Bahalia Publishing was born.
| | 05:15 | I want to give an author or give an
illustrator an opportunity and just advocate this new
| | 05:21 | medium to them.
| | 05:22 | Male Speaker: So these are the notes and you tap on
the notes. Maybe they are going to get bigger
| | 05:27 | or they are going to glow.
| | 05:29 | Stacey Williams-Ng: We've got to think
of what a tomato would do.
| | 05:32 | There is actually a really cool feature in
Composer that allows you to do something called
| | 05:38 | a Joint Physics object.
| | 05:42 | The Physics object is when something can
bounce around, like a beachball right around the
| | 05:46 | page--we've talked about that--but you can
apply a joint to it, meaning it will join
| | 05:51 | it to a point on the screen, and on the tomatoes,
like you could touch and they could go bo-ing.
| | 05:56 | Male Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
| | 05:57 | Stacey Williams-Ng: Little Bahalia is not about me publishing
my own work; it's about seeing an opportunity
| | 06:02 | for creative people who have a similar vision
that I have to create really interesting work,
| | 06:09 | and now I am seeing opportunities to
just--everybody should be doing these books.
| | 06:13 | (music playing)
| | 06:19 | Today I started my new class at the
Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.
| | 06:22 | I am teaching a class called
Interactive Book Design for the iPad.
| | 06:31 | My enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of the chair
of the department were both based on the same
| | 06:36 | premise of "Wouldn't be
this be great for students?"
| | 06:39 | So few students have this opportunity.
It's dovetailing into the illustration department
| | 06:46 | and the animation department to
really do books, children's books.
| | 06:51 | I am very excited about that because I've
learned so much in the last two years, and
| | 06:55 | I am only just now realizing
how unique that knowledge is.
| | 06:59 | The whole idea of this iPad, that children
switch to the iPad, is just magical and different
| | 07:04 | and it's wide open.
| | 07:08 | Here we have this opportunity in Milwaukee
to start making literature for children, and
| | 07:14 | I really see that as my mission here.
| | 07:19 | The story of my professional life seemed, for
the longest time, to just be all over the place.
| | 07:24 | Now I am a graphic designer, now I am a
painter, now I am an illustrator. And finally, I am
| | 07:31 | using all of those talents in one thing:
it's interactive books for the iPad.
| | 07:39 | My hidden focus all this time
was storytelling through pictures.
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|
|
Extended FeaturesInteractive book app tour and demo| 00:00 | I should probably talk a little bit about
the difference between a book app and an ebook.
| | 00:08 | An ebook is something that you would find in--
you could read on a Kindle, or any other
| | 00:13 | reading device.
| | 00:13 | It is essentially, usually a novel,
although some picture books are turned into ebooks
| | 00:19 | and they are just like page-turners, but it
kind of will remind you of a PDF. It's basically
| | 00:23 | a digital document. You are turning the,
page and you can expand the text and make it a
| | 00:29 | little bit--like the font size, you can
increase and decrease and stuff like that.
| | 00:33 | And you can define a word by double-
clicking on it. And we'll look at some of those, but
| | 00:38 | a book app is different,
| | 00:41 | in that an app is something that does not
live in the bookstore at all. You don't actually
| | 00:46 | shop for it in the iBookstore on an Apple
device or you can't get it on a Kindle because
| | 00:51 | it won't play. It's actually sort of, like
a standalone game. So here's a good example.
| | 00:58 | Pedlar Lady, Dim Sum Warriors, these are
books, but they live on the surface, on the desktop
| | 01:04 | of my iPad just like games. They are sitting
right next to Temple Run, and they are sitting
| | 01:07 | right next to like Angry
Birds and stuff like that.
| | 01:10 | So it's an actual standalone app, and then you
launch it and it still has kind of a paradigm
| | 01:15 | of page turns, and that kind of makes it a
book, which I'll do with air quotes because really,
| | 01:20 | there is no limits.
| | 01:21 | It could be a mini-movie, it could be very
game-like, or it could look like an ebook.
| | 01:28 | It could have tons and tons of text.
| | 01:29 | Now, the thing about many of these is, keep
in mind, this is designed for a little kid
| | 01:36 | and his or her mom or dad to sit down
and then look at in a very private way.
| | 01:41 | So these don't always project well.
They really are meant to be consumed in your lap.
| | 01:47 | Now, this app involves a lot of movement of
the iPad itself. So like, you can shake the
| | 01:52 | iPad and make things fall off of
tables and cool stuff like that.
| | 01:55 | It actually--and you'll be able to do that
in your apps. You can use the movement of
| | 01:58 | the iPad, the tablet itself. It's called the
accelerometer, and you can use that to trigger actions.
| | 01:58 | (video playing)
(Child's voice: Once upon a time, there were three little pigs.)
| | 02:12 | Okay, now I am just going to use my finger
and, like, touch these pigs and you watch what happens.
| | 02:17 | (squealing sound)
| | 02:19 | That's when I like push them up, like this.
But if I just touch them,
| | 02:24 | (Children's voices: Hi there! Hello!
Are you ready? Woo! Wee!)
| | 02:34 | notice it's different every time. They've randomized it.
| | 02:38 | Now, I can navigate with this table of
contents, which I think is wonderful for pre-readers,
| | 02:41 | because you don't have to know what page.
The child can just go back to their
| | 02:44 | I love this because I can actually
sabotage his efforts by pushing on the wolf's van,
| | 02:44 | favorite page based on memory.
| | 02:47 | So when we get to like them being chased.
| | 03:00 | make it harder for the wolf, and
I can help the pigs run faster.
| | 03:05 | (Child's voice: Go, go! Hurry up!)
(audio playing)
| | 03:19 | So this is kind of cool because it is a
watercolor illustration, which I really respect.
| | 03:25 | I mean I think there is an awful lot of
apps out there that are the flat graphics that
| | 03:31 | are graphically produced--which are beautiful;
even three little pigs is clearly digital
| | 03:35 | art--but it's excellent. But I also appreciate
how hard it is to take watercolor illustrations
| | 03:41 | and bring them in and do this,
so I think this is pretty cool.
| | 03:43 | (Male Speaker: I was walking down the road and
I saw a...donkey! Hee haw! He was a wonky donkey!)
| | 04:00 | Here's the one that I think is cool about this.
| | 04:03 | So little kids can turn off all the color.
You can just stop reading. How many of you
| | 04:06 | colored on your books when you
were little and got in trouble? I did.
| | 04:12 | So you can go and go into this mode and you
can draw and color the book yourself, and you
| | 04:18 | can choose colors.
I am going to get a bigger paintbrush.
| | 04:20 | You'd be surprised, little kids actually
know how to do this. I've seen three-year-olds
| | 04:25 | do this and they are like, I know how to
change color. You don't have to even, like,
| | 04:28 | tell them. So blue sky, yellow bee. And I
can have a smaller brush, obviously, but I
| | 04:38 | am five so... There is a lot of examples of
books out there that are still fairly loyal
| | 04:46 | to the book and the story, but they allow
you to do weird things to it, like the kid can
| | 04:50 | put stickers on it or color it themselves.
| | 04:51 | There are other ones that allow the parents
to narrate, so you can turn off the narration
| | 04:57 | and mom or dad can narrate it and that way
mom is on a business trip and the kid can
| | 05:00 | listen to the story with mom
reading it, which I think is pretty sweet.
| | 05:04 | Middle grade I've learned is the Bermuda
Triangle digital books. Like, people of our
| | 05:09 | age are perfectly willing to buy a digital
book if we have access to a device, little
| | 05:14 | kids think they are the best, but 9- to
14-year-olds are just kind of like nah.
| | 05:19 | Even if you give them access to the device,
they still prefer the number shown. I am not
| | 05:24 | saying each individual, but overall, the
numbers showed those books aren't selling and somehow
| | 05:26 | the market is not reaching
middle-grade kids and teens.
| | 05:31 | They just basically, when they are not on
a screen, if they want to read, they just
| | 05:35 | want to read. They want to switch off because
they are on screens all day at school. They're
| | 05:38 | texting all day with their friends.
| | 05:40 | So the biggest theory that they have so far
is it's probably just like screen fatigue.
| | 05:44 | I just want to read right now.
| | 05:48 | So this is cool. It has a lot of atmosphere.
| | 05:52 | I love the way that this is designed, because
it really reminds me of very classical, 20th
| | 05:57 | century children's literature, with the spot
illustration on the left with the soft edges and
| | 06:03 | the words over to the right.
But obviously we have a full animation going on here.
| | 06:07 | So if you touch this guy, he makes a sound,
but it doesn't move. And the chicken is moving.
| | 06:15 | So I have to say, this kind of animation is
typical of, like, the scope of animation that
| | 06:22 | I usually do in the books that I am doing.
| | 06:25 | So those of you who are in other animation
classes, you're used to 24 frames per second;
| | 06:29 | in this class, you'll probably be doing like
six to eight frames per second, because we're
| | 06:34 | still staying within the paradigm of a book.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| In depth: Demibooks Composer workflow| 00:00 | So this is a storybook app about the group
names--or you might call them collective nouns--
| | 00:07 | for animal groups.
| | 00:08 | So we've all heard of a school of fish, and
many people have heard of a pride of lions.
| | 00:12 | On every page, you get the group of animals,
and they'll do something, and then the child
| | 00:17 | is basically reinforced on the vocabulary word.
| | 00:20 | But for now, I am really just in production
mode with these illustrations. I did not illustrate
| | 00:25 | this app. I am really serving as art
director, as publisher and production artist.
| | 00:30 | I am the everything else except the writer
and the illustrator here. I am the behind-
| | 00:34 | the-scenes person.
| | 00:36 | So the text on this page is, "A pride of lions
licks monster-size paws," and clearly what we
| | 00:43 | need to happen here in terms of
interactivity is someone needs to lick a paw. That's the
| | 00:47 | most important thing.
| | 00:48 | Because I don't like to have interactivity
that's just gratuitous. I think that even
| | 00:52 | though we could have lions strolling all
around the Savannah and roaring and doing all kinds
| | 00:58 | of wonderful things, that doesn't mean we
should; it doesn't mean it's going to improve the story.
| | 01:03 | We have this gorgeous watercolor by Pamela
Baron. So she's really sensitive to animation
| | 01:08 | so she's provided multiple frames of everything.
| | 01:10 | So we do have a lion licking a paw, the lion
on the right, and then the other animals do
| | 01:16 | something as well.
| | 01:17 | So the lioness, she gives us a nice
little blink and purrs and wags her tail a bit.
| | 01:24 | This lion only purrs. And then this little
lion cub tilts his head, and that's enough,
| | 01:30 | because really the focus
needs to be on the lick.
| | 01:34 | So I am actually building
this page in Composer right now.
| | 01:39 | We're looking just at a preview, so it
looks like a finished app, but it's not.
| | 01:42 | If I close out of here, you can actually
see my workspace in here, and this is what we
| | 01:46 | refer to as the workbench.
| | 01:49 | All of these things have been manipulated
in Photoshop first because Photoshop is going
| | 01:53 | to be the best environment for cutting out
these layers, for reducing the size of them
| | 01:58 | and adjusting the color and all of
that. That is not what Composer is for.
| | 02:02 | Composer is for composing; it's for
authoring all those things together.
| | 02:06 | So here on the workbench, you can see that
I've got different objects. The lioness and
| | 02:11 | her lion cub are one object, so I can move
them around anywhere I want, and I can shrink
| | 02:17 | them down just by pinching.
| | 02:19 | So even thought this is kind of fun,
usually professional designers want to have really
| | 02:23 | precise controls. So there is an opportunity
to come in here and actually change the size
| | 02:30 | and the position to things that are very,
very specific pixel dimensions, just by either
| | 02:34 | typing those in or what have you.
| | 02:37 | I've programmed in some interactivity like
this is the touch area where you would get
| | 02:40 | the lion to do his lick animation, and
that can be moved and adjusted as well.
| | 02:45 | And if you look at my behaviors, for example,
when the lion licks, I've got a series of
| | 02:51 | things that happen.
| | 02:53 | So what happens when the user touches that
rectangle? I want of couple of things to happen.
| | 02:57 | Well, I want you to play the animation, and
then I want you to make an audio sound, which
| | 03:01 | is lion lick number two. And there is a
wait in between because the timing needed to be adjusted.
| | 03:07 | So it was a very fast and experimental
process, and I could just, like, check on things and
| | 03:12 | see how I like it instantly,
which makes the creative process fun.
| | 03:16 | (audio playing)
| | 03:24 | So I can look at the bats page. Just because
I was previewing lions doesn't mean I am not
| | 03:28 | previewing the whole app.
| | 03:29 | So, it's really fast.
| | 03:31 | The important thing is to think about, how
do we go from beginning to middle to end in
| | 03:36 | a real story arc, but how can we also like
think about the expectations that our reader
| | 03:43 | has on each page?
| | 03:44 | There are really fun things happening.
Like okay, so the skunks here are going to
| | 03:50 | make funny sounds, and they are going to
walk around, and they are doing a lot, and every
| | 03:55 | single one does something.
| | 03:58 | So these are silly, and they are funny, and
they all do something, and then the question
| | 04:03 | is, do all of these animals do something?
| | 04:07 | And they do.
| | 04:08 | In this case, we've got peacocks
who are going to show us their plumes.
| | 04:11 | So they are not in for like silly laughs
like the skunks. They are going to show you how
| | 04:15 | beautiful they are; they are boasting.
| | 04:19 | So those are different things,
but they are parallel things.
| | 04:23 | So just to look at that and how that
looks when we are tinkering on the workbench.
| | 04:27 | So it took us back to a pride of lions, because as
far as it's concerned, that's how we were looking at.
| | 04:31 | We were looking at that flow. But when I
think about the order of the pages here and I am
| | 04:35 | really like--I can jump back and say, you
know what, this thing with the pride of lions,
| | 04:39 | the way he licks his paw really, reminds me
of what happens on the monkey page, which is page four.
| | 04:45 | It's the way that you think about the flow
and the story arc that really makes all the difference.
| | 04:49 | And so this is really an ideal program for
storytelling, and I can keep that flow and
| | 04:55 | it's all really tight and in
this little environment.
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| In depth: Illustrating an interactive scene| 00:03 | I am going to draw the
scene where Luigi is up close.
| | 00:08 | The opera is going on, and he looks over
and catches his grandpa falling asleep.
| | 00:13 | Right now I just have to figure out how to
squeeze big, fat grandpa into one of these little,
| | 00:20 | bitty theater chair.
| | 00:22 | The lady today said her bigger
patrons don't actually sit in these chairs.
| | 00:25 | We're going to have to force
grandpa into this little chair.
| | 00:30 | I think that will actually add to the
humor if he's kind of busting out of it.
| | 00:34 | A visual pun for a kid.
| | 00:39 | I had a really fun time auditioning parts for
grandpa, because when you say Grandpa Rigoletto,
| | 00:46 | I thought, well, a curly haired Italian grandpa.
| | 00:49 | He should have like black curly hair, and I
felt like he was looking a little too much
| | 00:53 | like an old-timey villain.
| | 00:55 | Then I ended up with guys that looked more
like a pizza chef and didn't look like they'd
| | 00:58 | really seen the world the way an opera-
loving grandpa had. And I kind of finally fell upon
| | 01:03 | this look, which actually
looks a lot like my dad.
| | 01:06 | He went gray early, and he always had like
the slick, like parted hair with--so, I
| | 01:13 | felt like this was really kind of the look
that I related to when I thought of what a
| | 01:18 | grandpa would look like,
was what my dad looked like.
| | 01:22 | So now I kind of feel like I know this character.
I don't need to look at the pictures anymore.
| | 01:25 | I know who I am drawing,
and I know how to draw him.
| | 01:27 | Now, it's all just proportion.
| | 01:31 | Grandpa Rigoletto is the
only one wearing a tuxedo.
| | 01:33 | The other patrons, they are in dressy clothes,
but I am not going to draw any other men in
| | 01:38 | tuxedos because I want him to really stand out,
maybe as someone from a different generation
| | 01:43 | and a different time.
| | 01:44 | The way Luigi has dressed, the way grandpa
is dressed, all of this reflects on what kind
| | 01:49 | of characters they are, always. I mean you're really
casting for a play when you're drawing.
| | 01:57 | Just like in any work of literature, you hear
the character's voice whenever he is quoted.
| | 02:01 | You hear what kind of personality he is,
and when he says to Luigi, you know, "You are a
| | 02:06 | true opera aficionado,"
and he owns opera glasses.
| | 02:11 | So this tells us that we, as readers, we get
that grandpa is a fan. This is not his first
| | 02:16 | opera; grandpa goes regularly, and he is
purposely exposing this little boy to something that
| | 02:21 | he cares about.
So grandpa is an opera fan.
| | 02:24 | And that tells us, even though we don't
know him, that tells us a little bit about his personality.
| | 02:28 | So you want to build off of that.
| | 02:32 | So this is Luigi's chair, but he is not
going to be sitting in it because he is going to
| | 02:37 | be painted separately, and he will be animated.
| | 02:40 | So we just have to give him a chair
to sit in. This is the background.
| | 02:50 | I think back to looking at children's books
when I was a child and how I would stare at
| | 02:55 | them, and then I'll see that book now, thirty
years later or more, and I recognize the picture
| | 03:00 | because I spent so much time staring at it,
thirty years ago because my parents were reading
| | 03:05 | it to me every night.
| | 03:07 | It's just awesome, the
power that these things have,
| | 03:10 | even on kids who don't necessarily
grow up to really like art that much.
| | 03:14 | They don't realize how much they are taking in.
| | 03:17 | Many people don't realize how much the
kids are taking in that story via the picture,
| | 03:21 | especially when they are prereaders.
| | 03:24 | This is the story for them; this
is how they are reading the story.
| | 03:31 | I could do this digitally. I mean, I do like
digital imaging, and I don't want to act like
| | 03:36 | this won't still receive a good deal of
attention in the computer once it's there.
| | 03:41 | But I do have a freedom on paper that I don't
have when I am working on, say, a Wacom tablet.
| | 03:52 | And believe me, I have tried to force it a
million times. I have tried drawing on the
| | 03:56 | iPad and I've drawn many things that I am
pretty happy with. I'll sit in the doctor's
| | 04:00 | waiting room and just draw on an iPad app.
| | 04:04 | But when I am doing really professional
work and I need to be able to create this lady,
| | 04:09 | I am not going to try and draw it on a Wacom
tablet and look at a screen and just try and
| | 04:14 | get all those proportions right.
| | 04:15 | To me, it's a special form of
torture for me, and I can't do it.
| | 04:20 | So, that's why I have this hybrid process.
| | 04:37 | Everything in this scene is going to be
really dark. We are in the middle of the show, and
| | 04:41 | this is what made Grandpa
Rigoletto fall asleep in the first place.
| | 04:45 | So we need to go in with dark everywhere.
| | 04:52 | Gouache is a thicker form of watercolor, and
so since I am really sort of at heart an oil
| | 05:00 | painter, I am much happier
painting really thick and gloppy.
| | 05:05 | I would be, in a way, happier working with just
acrylics, but I've learned, and I've also heard
| | 05:12 | from art directors, other art directors who've
given me feedback, that really, for book design
| | 05:18 | it just doesn't come out
well from a print standpoint.
| | 05:21 | But the nice thing about gouache is I can
go really thin like this and then I can come
| | 05:25 | and like lay it on later, and I can
really get that opacity. It's cool.
| | 05:42 | I definitely want grandpa to have a
more florid complexion than Luigi.
| | 05:45 | He's going to be kind of pink all over.
He spends a lot of time listening to opera, hanging out indoors.
| | 05:55 | This is going to be very slow
animations, maybe six frames per second.
| | 05:58 | And so everything is just going to have very,
very gentle movements, more like a painting
| | 06:02 | that's come to life. Plus it has to live as
a book in print, so it has to be something
| | 06:07 | that has some real, in mind, has to have
some real texture to it and really draw in the
| | 06:11 | eye as a still painting too.
| | 06:15 | It takes a lot of discipline to avoid putting
in too many bright colors and to avoid giving
| | 06:21 | detail where it's not due.
| | 06:23 | I want there to be enough detail, like, I
could have made the couple really obscured, but I
| | 06:27 | like giving them enough detail that I could
kind of look at them and sort of pass judgements
| | 06:31 | on them, like, "Ooh there is a lady down there.
Is she older than my mom or younger than my mom?"
| | 06:36 | So I think that people want to kind of look
at the people in the background, but they are
| | 06:41 | only going to get a second of our attention;
the attention is really going to be on Luigi.
| | 06:45 | So yeah, I have to kind of hold back.
| | 06:48 | And then of course I've got to paint
Luigi and I've got to paint grandpa's head.
| | 06:52 | So I will use tracing paper, usually is
what I do, and create exactly the right size
| | 06:59 | that I want here, and then I will paint
that separately. And I'll probably just have one
| | 07:05 | sheet of paper that is one of these
pages that is Luigi and a floating head.
| | 07:12 | It's really kind of cool that I can
have the luxury on something this short.
| | 07:16 | It's only fifteen pages long as an app.
| | 07:20 | So for fifteen page turns and basically fifteen layouts,
I can have these brushstrokes and just keep
| | 07:27 | the frame rate to a real minimum and
really have this richness of shape and color.
| | 07:33 | It should feel, if I do it properly, it
should feel like a watercolor painting is moving.
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