From the beginning I had decided to cover immigration as the topic of the book. However, I planned to aim the book at the younger ages of children. Early on, I decided that the story should not directly relate to the theme of immigration, but should be a subtle hint, therefore making the book still somewhat lighthearted, and yet retaining the ability for the children to understand it and possibly apply it to real life situations.
Children’s books often personify animals as a way of story telling. I planned to do the same. It would also give me a chance to try using a mixture of computer editing and compositing, with hand drawn artwork, and photoshop painting.
The style was decided for a number of reasons. Chief among which was my own limitations with illustrating and painting. The other was that children’s books are never over complicated anyway. My research demonstrated that the drawings/characters can be incredibly simple.
Originally, I had considered a combination of line drawings and brown paper texture as the background. However, through tutorials in the workshops, and seeing how digitally painting could look (and how it can bring out a character and make them stand out) I decided this was the way to go.
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