Puppy Story

This is a kids’ book Andrew worked on in 2006. It is incomplete as it does not include any words.

The following is Andrew's own description of the book:

COVER

This is the cover for a kids' book I dabbled with back in 2006. It hasn't been published in any capacity -- I haven't even tried to get it published, to be perfectly honest.

A lot of that is to do with the words -- a lot of it is to do with a lack of confidence... and a lot of it is to do with the fact that it doesn't feel... FINISHED.

Ahhhh well, whatever.

The point is, here's the cover to the book. The main character is the enormous dog.

PAGE 1

This is the first page of the storybook. I did this when I first started working in childcare. I took a bunch of things that the kids were interested in and rolled them together into a single book.

The first page here introduces a whole bunch of elements that the children are meant to look for as the book progresses as well as to foreshadow the various other characters who will appear in the book.

Look out for the suit case and the snail as the book goes on.

PAGE 2

Every second page of the book was a 'travelling' page. A smaller image that would allow more descriptive text and allow the kids to rest their eyes a bit.

This is the first of those pages.

PAGE 3

This page introduces the dinosaur character -- probably my favourite character in the book. Expressive and fun to draw. I have other Dinosaurs I've drawn over the years -- specifically diplodocus-type dinos like this guy. I was conscious of changing this guy's details a bit to make him look different and so he doesn't completely cartoon out the place next to the more realistic dog.

Why is he sitting on the mountain?

Well... when kids are playing with playdough or in the sand they'll often make little mountains for toy dinosaurs. Mountains which are insanely small compared to the figures themselves. I wanted to capture that with the Dino here.

PAGE 4

Another travelling page. You might notice the dinosaur's gotten... a bit smaller here.

I like the dog's running pose a fair bit.

PAGE 5

This is where things start to get a bit more involved. They meet another friend -- a bird in a truck. The truck? Totally 100 percent based on the kind of big plastic toy trucks kids play with in child care centres.

They're horrible messes.

I made the bird character a girl -- and I'm happy with that.

Notice in the background that you can still see the Dinosaur's mountain -- this was a conscious choice. I wanted all the elements from each page to carry over into the next page... so that the kids could follow the journey of all the little bits and pieces.

PAGE 6

Another travelling page -- you can begin to see why these are needed now, to take a rest from the other pages and make a more smooth transition.

I was pleased with the way the colours helped to convey the bird's flight here

PAGE 7

Okay, things are looking a bit more interesting now -- and this is definitely where I think the book starts getting relatively good. There's an enormous amount going on, there's a bunch of characters to look at and a bunch more elements to follow.

The best part, though, is the fact that there are sub-plots going on that don't need to come up in the text itself. The text of the story would just talk about the puppy dog meeting up with his next friend.

Wouldn't even mention the dinosaur in the truck, or the bird on the water float, or the suitcase in the water. The suitcase is, of course, entirely there as a "Do you see where his suitcase went?" element for the reader to prompt a child (or group of children) with.

I think I need to do some better scans of these -- the blue water was really washed out by the scan.

PAGE 8

Another travelling page. I wanted to throw in a gag here -- so they're all poking their tongues.

I really wish I'd made the fish a boy instead of a girl -- and made the dinosaur a girl instead. There's no reason for the fish to be a girl, or for the dinosaur to be a boy... but if the dinosaur was a boy it'd be good -- dinosaurs appeal to boys ANYWAY... so making it a girl would appeal more widely to both genders.

Ahh well.

PAGE 9

One of my favourites. The colour is a lot of the reason -- I like the dirt. But I also really like the cat. I've never been very good at drawing cats... so it took me a lot of effort to get it right.

The snail's still there -- did you remember you were supposed to be looking for that too?

(Also the truck, the pond and the mountain from the previous pages.)

PAGE 10

The two best pages of the book are the last two. I really like this page because I worked really hard on capturing the difference between a dog and a cat as I see the two animals...

One being much more upright and reserved, the other being... well... out-and-out insane. I'm really glad to have actually pulled it off, I think.

PAGE 11

The final page -- and I was really able to do some nice things here. Everything was brought back together -- back to the dog's house.

Okay, that makes no sense... why did he travel all that way just to come home? Pffft, who cares?

Anyway, him and all his friends back home having a nice old sleep. Using the window I kept the other elements of the story in -- or at least most of them. I'm also pleased with how I solved the Dinosaur's being able to fit into the room/frame.

But the thing I like most is the sleeping cat. There's just something... cattish about him.