Project Mickey - Talk by Nick Rose

The author wanted to create a children's book around his Microlight Aircraft and his experiences traveling around Australia. He talked through the processes that helped him to reach the final look of his book which he hopes shows a unique house style, able to compete with existing children's characters around similar themes. To help him produce this he employed animators, computer designers and a key girl who initially designed the characters and ended up seeing them through the whole process as she learnt.

From the drawings he gave her, she worked in her preferred medium of watercolours to create initial sketches based on Nick's description of what Miro should be. Her style won her the contract as it characterised the plane in a way that would appeal to children and look distinctive. It had to be friendly and cute so the structure of the plane was softened with the front wheel appearing to be held in place by two arms to bring in a human element. Her style proved so populer that she then went on to sketch out the landscape and overall look of the book, experimenting with bringing in computer graphic elements into her drawings. The final look of the book uses her watercoulor images mapped onto digital elements. This softens the harsh block colours typical of computer generated imagery.

When submitting her final character layouts, they were all mapped out with the arms aloft to later allow the animators to see how the character should be digitally rigged. Moving turnarounds of the final CG characters were also submitted so you can gain a better understanding of how they would move. This is also very useful when it comes to 3D realisation, allowing an outsider to prduce 3D models to display and take to potential television producers and toy companys should the book prove successful.