:: evolution of pirate girl's book cover ::

Hilary here again! Last time, I walked through the evolution of the Pirate Girl's appearance. Today I will walk through the steps in the creation of the book cover for The Pirate Girl's Treasure - An Origami Adventure.


This was the initial sketch I created for our book cover. The fonts were place holders while I figured things out. I was super excited to incorporate a hidden image across the double page spread...


This is a colour sketch where I blocked in the big shapes to see if this would work. I even threw in some texture for effect.


My editor and I agreed that the previous sketch didn't convey the "epic-ness" of the Pirate Girl's adventure, so we went with this version instead. I really wanted to use this font...



The sand colour was fighting a bit with Pirate Girl's face. To increase legibility (and allow our star to shine), I had to gray out the sandy beach.

Also after a lengthy discussion about the font choice, we went with this final design!

Close up of The Pirate Girl's Treasure - An Origami Adventure cover available here.

:: evolution of pirate girl's appearance ::

Hilary here, to share more exciting adventures in the making of "The Pirate Girl's Treasure - An Origami Adventure".

Below is one of the first notes from my editor...

"As cute as Pirate Girl might be, she’s simply too similar to Dora, and this would be the first thing reviewers comment on. I’m sure you can understand that we want to ensure nothing detracts from the merit of the story and the book overall, and just as important, that your work as a new and not-yet well-know illustrator is seen as fresh and original rather than derivative."

Well, I didn't know what derivative was, but I certainly didn't want any part of it! Back to the drawing board!



1. I started playing with different hair colours and styles. Because I had already designed a Pirate Girl logo mark, I immediately took to the double ponytails look. The stylized skull and cross bones fit perfectly with our female protagonist's new hair style! I tried different hair colours, but in the end kept the dark brown hair (to help contrast her lighter skin tone.)



2. I originally wanted keep Pirate Girl's shirt a strong bold red. This would also allow for her to really pop on the earthy blue and green backgrounds. However my editor pushed really hard for something fancier and I agreed to try a red and white striped pirate shirt.



3. After slapping on a fancy skull belt buckle and a some cute freckles - our heroine was ready for adventure! While the white stripes does get a bit muddy in some of the wide shots, I have grown to love her new look!

Success!

:: pirate pitch ::

On Tuesday August 11, 2009, Hilary and Peyton walked into the KCP offices and pitched an origami pirate picture book.

Through Peyton's story-telling and Hilary's live origami demonstration, they impressed their soon-to-be-editor. They had also presented three pieces of sample artwork illustrating what "Pirate Girl" would look like. Below is the super secret never been seen before pirate artwork!







Note - we were still debating whether to use illustration or photography for the origami models.

Stay tuned for what happens next!

:: the journey continues ::

Ahoy! Hilary and Peyton Leung have officially signed a book contract with Ninja Cowboy Bear publisher - Kids Can Press. While this is certainly not the first project the two Leung brothers have worked on together, this will be the first pirate picture book.

On deck, Peyton will be handling the origami and writing duties and Hilary will take care of illustration and design. Also on board is editor extraordinaire Yvette Ghione to help navigate the treacherous Publisher Board Meetings!

This exciting project has set sail and returns Spring 2012 (publication date). Stay tuned for exciting adventure details!

{ smooth sailing }

this is just to note that we have "passed our first skirmish" as our editor let us know that the in-house staff has approved the story to go to an Editorial Board Meeting.

we have always believed that this story is worth telling, and now we're one step closer to having it told across the country!

{ my history of pirate stories }

i have always enjoyed making origami - the act of creating a beautiful model out of a simple piece of paper is attractive to people of all ages. as an occasional teacher, i use origami as an extra "lesson" to add something different and fun to the day.

i discovered traditional model of "the pirate's shirt" around 2004 and it quickly became a favourite model with the surprise ending. as i continued making origami with different classes, i found myself having to make more and more models as students would often "not know" or "forget" the steps. i began to think that a story would be a great format to introduce people to the model and possibly link the folds to important parts of the story.

in Dec 2005, i wrote an early draft of the "Storyboat" to teach beginning steps of the "pirate's shirt." over the next couple of years, i revised with hundreds (if not thousands) of re-tellings to people of all ages (even in australia and singapore!), finally submitting a draft to Kids Can Press and coming to the current draft.

:: pirate dream ::

Have you ever had an amazing idea in your dream? Only to wake up and have it quickly slip away? I do and I seldom remember these flashes of brilliance. Fortunately that wasn't the case this morning...

The excitement of this pirate book project has me thinking about our story all the time! All day. All night. And now, even in my sleep!

Peyton and I were brainstorming yesterday about what type of creatures and plants should be included in our book. We came up with many ideas like monkeys, parrots, toucans, hawks, dodo birds, mountain goats, bears, bats, giant spiders, mice, flamingos, fancy fish, whales, dolphins, sea monsters, giant squid and sharks.

So! In my dream, I continued to brainstorm... when the brilliant idea struck! I can use my hundreds of Hawaii vacation photos for reference. I took a ridiculous amount of photographs of exotic fruits, vegetation, flowers, animals, landscapes and even tikis.

Love it! Going to stop talking about it and continue drawing...