2ND SEM - FINALS: Children's E-book (with links)

Children, look! Let's learn together!- Multimedia Arts Children's E-book

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Children, so innocent, so nice, and they have a lot to learn! What better way to learn than by a Children's activity or story book! Or a 2-in-1 so they can learn both life lessons or values and basic education!

This is a progress report and discloses everything we, as a group, this may be the last topic that I will share as a finals project for our 2nd year of college! 

We were (unfortunately) assigned the Math subject so my group formulated activities related to Math while also creating a good storyline for the kids to enjoy. We have to keep it simple and understandable so we put ourselves in the kids' shoes as if we were the ones who will be benefiting from these as a four year old to a ten year old.

I am lucky enough to have some sort of experience with creating kids' books, this is because I made one in my senior high school years. I used this as a guide so we can have a reference we can look at. We examined mistakes in grammar and art wise then also considered some points from the same book to incorporate it in the new one.

Immediately, as the leader, I went and created three departments to accommodate my 7 members and some of us had to do two roles at once to maximize the team effort. 

Come and join us in our journey to create a children's book! We can make one together~

Ice cream asset

illustrated by Kayle (IG: @hanzo_arts) and Patricia (IG: @pnp.drawss)

First, create roles or assign them to your team. If you work solo, make sure to divide the work evenly on a schedule to avoid overloading yourself. Here are the roles that we ended up with:

Illustrators: Kayle Pascual, Patricia Pamplona, and Mark Loy Sanchez
Writers/Story makers: Zeke Gatus and Mark Loy Sanchez
Translators: Ken Dizon and Ashley Rivera

Supervisor and Editor: Monina T. Mateo

STORY MAKING AND SCRIPT WRITING

On May 30, Zeke, our story maker, was able to finish the first draft of the script. I was the one who mainly did the editing of the script, it only needed a few polishes to make it to the final version, which was accomplished on May 31.

first draft of script:

 

final script:

We still have some grammar and typography errors but that's okay since we went back to fix it during the final editing of the e-book.

STORYBOARD MAKING

The next step is to make a storyboard. In films and video making, this is important to see if concepts and how they are filmed are feasible and to make it easier for everyone involved to visualize the situation.

For us artists, this can be also used for story books and comics etc., and that's what my illustrators did. 

created by: Kayle 

As you can see, a lot of trial and error happened and that's the beauty of a storyboard. You can see if a concept shot or view works or not. If it does, use it, if it doesn't, then make another one. Storyboards were a huge aid to us since we are forgetful students and with just one look of the storyboard, we are reminded of which page to work on and what to do with it.

CHARACTER DESIGNS

Character Design is probably the most fun part. You get to experiment and see what works and what doesn't. One can make various poses and expressions and even change art styles that fits the concept.

In the first part of the script, we noticed there was no official name, the main character was only named as "Loy". Kayle and Patricia noticed that we were under the Math subject so the name we gave the main character of the story was Addison Cruz since it sounded similar to "Addition" and the plus sign can sometimes be called as a "cross", making Addison's last name be "Cruz".

Here are some of his first designs as "Loy".

created by: Kayle and Patricia

He underwent a lot of design changes but this was his final design concept, done by June 1-2.

Addison Cruz

created by: Kayle and Patricia

Here is another character in the book, named Benjamin Hopps. Originally and officially called as "Benjamin Hopps the bunny", there were a lot of names considered for him such as Brandon, Brody, and Bryce, but we ended up with Benjamin since it sounded a lot more friendly and simpler for kids.

Benjamin Hopps

created by: Kayle and Patricia (saved with transparent colors in .png format)

Finally, there is the Ice cream vendor, who Patricia created as an Owl. If you noticed, everyone else is an animal while Addison remains human. This is because we agreed to make Addison as the only human for the sole purpose of having the kids recognize Addison as the main character easier.

Mr. Owl, the Ice cream vendor
created by: Patricia

Once the design of Addison was final, the illustrators found their art style that they plan on using for the entirety of the e-book.

TRANSLATION

Translating is honestly not that hard and can even be done after the whole illustration process. However, seeing that we were playing with short time, along with other projects due the same time as this one, we had to do it as soon as the script was done. That is one less thing to worry about.

Though it is not a necessity, I do recommend it for the sake of the other kids who don't know the English language well and prefer their own home language.

My group's translators, Ken and Ash, divided the script into two and continued to work on translating it into Tagalog for the kids who would rather read it in Filipino. This makes the book work for those who prefer English over the other and vice versa. 

Filipino translated script:

The Filipino scrip was finished on June 3. Once that is done, we can move on to the next part, which is what nearly drove us insane. ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ 

ILLUSTRATING

This is now the production part of the process and you must be prepared to redo pages as it is surely a trial and error process. Keep yourself in the schedule to save time and not waste any unnecessary effort.

It is the hardest part, for me and especially the illustrators, since we didn't know how many pages the final product was going to be. Nonetheless, to save time, we started as soon as the script was done and began drawing cover ideas by June 1.

This is the cover that we ended up with for the mock up sample. It is also the same cover we used for the final product.

created by Kyle

Each illustrator had their own job, Kayle was the head illustrator as he worked on the assets, covers (front and back), and the activities. Patricia was the assistant illustrator that handled the main storyline of the e-book. Finally, Loy was in charge of the background sketches when he was done working on the first script.

Here are the first designs of the background made by Loy, finished on June 4-5.

"Hallway" and "Park" first concept designs

created by Loy

Here are the first drafts for the first few pages in the final e-book, started on June 6.

created by Kyle and Patricia

These were later used in the final versions of the pages for the book. We had to consider the amount of space needed for the text to be inputted and it has to fit the English and the Filipino text.

The process of doing all the pages took about a week or so, we were doing our best not to cram so we set deadlines for ourselves. We have to consider also how the pages would work together, and how it would play out in the final product.

We kept in mind that we have to avoid overloading each page to keep the kids from being confused. As a children's book creator, we have to think like kids in order to get a realistic view and think of what we want to see if we were them.

We try to complete at least two pages per day and five at most so we can take breaks and rest. I was the one who also inputted page numbers per page, which are also important for the kids to locate what page they are on or want to see.

Finally, we were able to complete the book on June 15-16, around midnight. I was also able to save it as a pdf and input it in a website called heyzine. It automatically made the pdf file into a flipbook, which is very convenient and helps us visualize the final output. Very convenient, if you ask me.

Here is a sample of another mock up with "Ice cream on a Saturday afternoon" as a final product.

created by Kyle

Seeing a mock up like this really pushed us forward to make it better. After a few more minor edits, triple checking, and finalizations, we have a completed our Mathematical children's e-book.

FINAL OUTPUT 

You have done it. You have your children's e-book and whether it is in a pdf file form or in heyzine flipbook, it is something that the children will be able to use and enjoy! 

I am happy to present our Math e-book, "Ice cream on a Saturday afternoon".
(Only a few pages though)

created by Kyle, Patricia, and Loy

For the entire e-book showcase, you can view it from the following looks:

G-drive link: click here | Flipbook version: click here

Here is the list of soft wares used in the making of this project:

Google Documents
Google Drive
Clip Studio Paint
Clip Studio Paint Ex
Adobe Photoshop
Microsoft Word
Canva
Heyzine

ENDING REMARKS

First of all, thank you to my members for being so hardworking. They were all amazing and were ready to contribute anything that they could. I appreciate the effort they put. 

Revisiting this type of challenging project was definitely not easy and almost ruined my sleeping schedule, but it will be beneficial to me as an artist in all aspects and will give me experience. I'm sure this is true for everyone in my group. 

My only hope is that the children will be able to enjoy both the activities and the story. I hope they gained values and was able to pick up some learnings to use in the future.

I also hope that those who view this blog entry, and any entry of mine for that matter, learned a few things as well. Remember to keep experimenting in your journey in the world of arts as you find your style. Knowledge is never ending and you can never stop learning. Life is filled with lessons after all.

This has been the Math group's progress report.
Until next time! Thank you.