Hello! Happy new year!
As I mentioned, my first childrens' book The Princess And The Fog is being published this summer after about a year in development. I thought I'd take the time here to show off a handful of my favourite illustrations that ultimately will not make it into the finished product.
The original front cover of the book. It has since been changed to be more dynamic and to more accurately reflect the contents. I still like this weird drifting, hopeless Princess but it doesn't really tell you anything about the actual story. I'll post the new one once it's finalised :)
One of the first images in my project sketchbook for The Princess and The Fog looked a lot like this. The idea was that the Princess's fog, a metaphor for depression, made it hard for the Princess to even see herself and how beautiful and amazing she really was. I ultimately cut this image because it was too sad and this isn't supposed to be a sad book. My publisher came back with a note saying that the fog completely obscuring the Princess's face was too scary, so this wouldn't have worked anyway.
Another early idea that I'm sad I had to get rid of. This represented the idea that the fog made it hard for the Princess to enjoy herself. I thought the tangle in the string exactly mirroring the fog was cool but maybe it wasn't as clear of an illustration as I'd hoped. Also I had to make her head invisible to make it work and that's just weird.
A spread in which the Princess was finally provoked into talking about how she felt and found that she had more to say than she realised. Since the book is now being publshed by a specialist Mental Health-based publishing house, the story has been rewritten to make it a lot less simplistic and so this no longer worked as part of a solution to the story. Also, again, look at her totally obscured face. Creepy. Much too sad.
Another part of the much-too-simple climax of the story. The friend who helped the Princess through her problems gets called on for another talk. The cast of characters has nearly doubled since the original story I handed in at the end of my MA project this summer to incorporate a huge and varied support network for the Princess - an often essential part of developing a solution to living with depression. I loved the pictures on the walls. Oh well.
The Princess And The Fog comes out in June in the UK and US, and in July in Canada and Australia. More dates and countries to be confirmed.
