#amandaapple

[hafsa-zaman-unit13]

Re write plan.

Here are some of the things I’m going to be changing/ adding to my mom’s story in order of the stories progression.

1- The beginning is too abrupt and not very descriptive of Amanda so I’m going to build up a little more to her fall and also allow the readers to get a better visual of what she looks like by describing that in more detail.

2- I’m going to add crystals that glow into the caves so that it’ll be easier for me to draw and easier for the reader to understand how she could even see in the shrouding darkness that is described.

3- Just because I feel like it would just work with how confused everyone is about her, I’m going to make it clear that the vegetables have never seen a fruit or even know that there is an above ground area.

4- I think, with how clever Oliver’s character is set up to be, that he should know fruits exist but only thought of them as a myth or extinct species. I might even have him take out a map that would help them if it wasn’t burned and illegible.

5- I’ve talked about Percy Pumpkin previously, I will add him in there too and change how the trio meet Paddy Potato.

6- The machine in the witch’s hut is a little underrated and makes the witch seem like a mean old lady who just needs a hit from her energy chair every now and then rather than an cruel dictator. I think I might be a little evil and make the witch use the vegetables as her source of energy and that’s where the old vegetables have disappeared to. (which was never explained or resolved in the book lol.)

7- I’m going to touch more on Amanda’s awakening/ legend because that was criminally brushed over in the book.

8- I might further heighten the climax of the story by making it out that everything is fine but in the last second Amanda is captured and strapped to the chair but in the end that’s what kills the witch and unearths the village.

9- When everything is over, I’ll have Percy return to his parents that were taken by the with to be used for energy, along with all the other vegetables that went missing, so that there’s a sense of relief and closure.

I feel really bad about having such criticism about my mums book but she doesn’t mind and agrees she kinda got tired at the end and maybe rushed things to get it done. She said she wrote a second one  after this which was 100 times better the the original, which we do not have, so this is apparently not her best work. I still love the idea of it though. It’s a really cute story.

[hafsa-zaman-unit13]

I’m super tired and feel sick so if any of this doesn’t make sense, I’m sorry.

This is my final exhibition presentation. I made two separate ones for each idea of mine and joined them together. For the Amanda Apple one, I couldn’t really decide what font to do for the title so I just wrote it out kinda small in the middle which I think looks nice because it’s very minimal. I wanted everything to be on a black background, as I usually do, so the colours would pop out. I put the character design I was working on, on the next page as well as a very brief description in the same handwritten font as the title. I really like how the characters look all lined up like that. Then I put a quick little inspiration page with images I found on google of a simple storybook exhibition, I actually couldn’t find much, or at least ones that weren’t (understandably) super childish/over the top complicated, I just want(ed) it to be simple. On the fourth slide, I used the templates we were given to show how I would set the space up and labeled it. 

The surrealization project (I changed the s to a z for an extra special...uh... uniqueness?) had a much better designed title which I talked about previously. I really like it. I added the illustrations I did on the next slide, as well as a slightly more descriptive annotation because there was a lot of space and I wanted to build up to the next page by explaining the day and night thingy. The next slide had the illustration I did for what I wanted the final exhibition to look like (not the layout, the final piece) I showed what I wanted it to switch between as a kind of night mode/day mode thing. Then I showed my suggested layout design which is very minimalistic and a list of materials I’d need.

This presentation didn’t go very well for me, it was the first time in a long time where I felt super anxious to speak in front of the class (which was my default reaction last year) I didn’t get to properly explain any of the slides because I just wanted it to be over quickly. I can also vividly remember snapping with my fingers in the awkward silence which made me cringe for days afterward. Oh well, hopefully it’ll be better next time. I was asked one question by Jerin which was which of my ideas would I chose if there wasn’t enoguh space for both. I replied that I would probably choose the Surrealization one because I thought it was super cool and also I am constantly worried about not being able to complete the Amanda Apple one in time or to a standard I’d even want anyone to see.

[hafsa-zaman-unit13]

Here is the final character design of my characters. These are all the main characters talked about in the book, plus another character I wanted to add to accompany Paddy Potato that isn’t much older than Amanda herself (which all the rest of them are) (he’s younger). I also added Amanda in there to show the height differences between them.

The first is Professor Pea, I first designed him on Emma’s Ipad in college which you can see up there. That was my first ever drawing on procreate. It was kinda hard to use because it doesn’t have a stabilizer on it, which I rely on to help my shaky hands. I redid him on Medibang and actually really like him. I think his is one of my favourite characters I drew. I like how vibrant the green is and also how comically large his head is in proportion to his body and his little hat. Everything really.

Next is Paddy Potato, who is my least favourite. I wanted him to look old and kind but he kinda looks one breath away from death and a little disheveled. I don’t really know how I could improve that though. Also I tried out a good few colours for his nose but none of them looked good at all.

Then we have Percy Pumpkin, the youngest character in the book and also a new addition to it. Just to talk about him quickly, when the team goes further on in the caves and discovers the sunken village, I wanted them to see a little orange thing running around and they’ll think it was the old carrot but they’ll find this little child who doesn’t talk much hiding behind Paddy Potato. His story, told by Paddy, is that he lost his parents to the witch and has been hiding with Paddy because he is much too young to be working for the witch. This one is my favourite character design. I really love everything about him. I wanted him to be dressed like a little gentleman because I thought that Paddy would dress him like that. He also has no shoes on and just runs around barefoot as an extra unnecessary but cute detail.

Barney Bean is next, he’s the first character to be introduced other then Amanda herself. I went through a couple different designs for him actually because he ended up looking like a green stick and not like a bean at all. He was also the most described one in the book; I’ve had to kind of improvise for everyone else. I don’t know if I should have made the t-shirt longer but he’s kinda rocking the crop top. I like his design mostly, I’m just unsure about the eyes.

Last, and kinda least is Oliver Onion. I dont really like his design, I think he does look friendly and how I imagined him to look but there’s something strange about him and I don’t know how to fiix it. He’s just okay.

To list these characters going from favourite to least favourite, it’s Percy, Professor Pea, Amanda, Barney, Oliver and then Paddy. I really enjoyed drawing them though and experimenting with the style.

I also tried turning them into humans just because I was curious to see what that would look like. I drew Amanda, Barney, Professor Pea and Oliver Onion (who I made purple because onions can be purple). I like how they look, if I wanted to completely branch out and take the book in an entirely different direction it could work.

[hafsa-zaman-unit13]

pt 2

[hafsa-zaman-unit13]

Here is some research I did into Illustrators I’ve found/been interested in lately that are inspiring me to create my final piece. These are in no particular order by the way. pt 1

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This is my mom’s actual book. She wrote it in 1989 which seems crazy to me. Thinking about my mom being around my age, which she was when she wrote this, is kinda bizarre. I’ve only ever known her as my mom but there was a time before me or my siblings where she wanted to write books I guess. Also this book is a whole decade older then me. It’s stayed very white and preserved so that’s impressive too, not that I’d expect it to fall apart that badly after only 30 years, but I have notes from like tenth grade (which was almost five years ago now what) that are one breath away from disintegrating. Oh yeah, she also typed this on a typewriter which makes it extra cool. She ended up sending it to a publisher who revised the story and gave feed back but my mom never got around to remaking it. It’s funny how she probably thought this would never be revisited again but now her daughter wants to illustrate it. Crazy how life pans out sometimes eh?