Story thumbnails - critiques appreciated!

[ArtMelC]

Hi all! I am putting initial ideas in thumbnails now for a wordless picture book. It is a preliminary, but I would like to hear your thoughts about it.

1. Can you tell the gist of the story from these thumbnails?
2. Which spread do you like the most?
3. Which spread do you like the least, or do you feel need to go away in order to service the story?

I have yet to go into details (e.g. character design, perspective, even values are very preliminary) so I would really love macro / concept level feedback before working further into the details. Thanks!

[A Former User]

@ArtMelC
Story: She's a little girl who loves rainbows. She is drawing rainbows and thinking about them. Then, she sees one out her window. She tells her father that she saw a rainbow. He gives her a camera to go and photograph it. She runs outside to go and find it. She almost gets a photo of it, but the cloud gets in front of it or makes the rainbow disappear. The cloud takes her to a place to play with rainbows.

Favorite: the first one, it has the most stuff in it to give us more information about the girl. Is it her birthday?

Improve: 5, the action of running could be done from a different angle to give more excitement and movement to the composition.

[ArtMelC]

@Stephanie-H Thank you so much for your thoughts!

• it is interesting that you like 1. I almost want to scrap it because I didn't end up using much of the book she got on her bday in later parts of the story. But now I have a vague idea of bringing the book back to the ending so maybee I can keep that.

• Thank you. I see what you mean. I definitely agree about needing to vary the cinematic angle. I hope I get the time to play around a bit more next week.

[KevinTreaccar]

@ArtMelC I thought she was reading a book in the first image, but I think drawing makes more sense upon reading Stephanie’s post. I see she sees a rainbow and then wants to find one. I’m not exactly sure what’s happening once in the clouds, but I’m looking on the phone. It’s small.

My favorite is when she sees the rainbow. Clear and it’s a big moment.

If she’s drawing in the first, I think she might need a silhouette twist because I see her and the book. I don’t see drawing tools. But I’m also on a small screen.

[ArtMelC]

@KevinTreaccar Thank you. Yes, she was reading and imagining being among rainbows, not drawing. I will have to think of ways to make it clearer... maybe I'll give a hint in the book cover.

I agree that the parts up in the cloud are not clear. I'm still struggling. The story I want:

The cloud took her up to the sky where she was overjoyed to be playing and bouncing among clouds. She even saw a few clouds making different rainbows. Some were weaving, some were painting. However, soon she started missing home. In order for her to get back home, she needed to build her own rainbow to go down. Since the only thing she has is her instant camera and her photos, she started lining them up in the colour of rainbows and used that rainbow to walk down to earth.

It felt straightforward to me but so difficult to draw on paper. I'll scribble some more.

[KevinTreaccar]

@ArtMelC I’m also looking at small thumbnails on my phone, so I’m likely missing some of the details you can see in your head. The pictures might work.

And it might just be that going wordless with such an abstract adventure might be the biggest part of the challenge.

Was listening to a podcast interviewing Dan Santat earlier today and he talked about how he (and he+Migh Le) create a wordless dummy first, but then add the necessary words after. Helps keep words minimal and focused. That might be an option here, too.

I also have a very literal brain, so I might have just missed the details needed to pick up on the adventure in the clouds.