Rusty Banana Forge

John Shelley conducted a workshop on developing story through pictures. First off was getting a bead on the character’s Whos Hows Wheres and Whats:

WHO

• Personality
• Body language
• Expression
• Age
• Costume

HOW

• Sequence
• Movement
• Readability
• Consistency (of Character & Story)
• Page turning
• Unifying Link

WHERE

• Surrounding
• Setting
• Mood

WHAT

• Impetus
• Problem
• Motivation
• Quest/Objective
• Goal
• Conflict

Ha! Like we could seriously think about all those in a matter of minutes! I don’t even think an hour would have been enough. So I guess we all took it one step at a time. (Some however had pretty amazing stories at the end of the exercise.) Children: you may try this at home. Supervise yourselves. Mr. Shelley recommends Uri Shulevitz’s Writing with Pictures book to get you going.

Keywords on pieces of paper were passed around in a bag.

1. First was the character. (I got “cow”.) We proceeded to come up with drawings for them. (I did shaman cow. Too much D&D & RPG in my head, I guess.) Frankly I don’t know how to draw a decent cow from memory. And I call myself an illustrator.

2. Then after that simple exercise… we got a location keyword. (I got “inner city”.) I threw “shaman cow” out the window and instead went for “mob cow” (who takes down milkmen for some bovine reason.) I don’t know if I’ll ever write for children….

3. Then we get some prop keyword that pretty much curdles your milk, so to speak. (I got “bucket”) Guess where I stuck the bucket?

4. Last keyword was for the setting. We really had to pump our udders for this last one. (I got 1940s - so I figure Post World War II …. what the hay, right?) No longer a “mob cow” but “hero cow”! He uses the bucket to put out fires. Not very creative on my part, really. Note to self: must read more children’s books.

5. In the end we had to create thumbnails for a little over 14 spreads of story. My story is about a loyal cow saving a war-torn Japanese community by offering to fill their buckets with milk (irradiated milk). A kid befriends the cow, thugs steal it, the community saves it. Mooooral of the lesson: value your cows. I wonder if kids will get it at all.

So after that, we showed John our portfolios. (I basically have to rearrange mine.) It’s the second SCBWI illustrator’s event now that it was brought up that a clear singular style is favored over multiple styles. It’ll help pitch illustrators into the pigeon holes publishers put us in. Yes, sad as that may sound. Here are some photos of that, more can be found at the SCBWI Philippines blog.

Big thanks to JOHN SHELLEY. Please visit his studio site and his blog.