Putting pictures to prose part 1

The job I'm currently working on is a childrens book written by esteemed Irish author Terry McDonagh. It's a beautiful coming of age story set in Hamburg called: Michel the Merman. It explores some really interesting themes and doesn't patronize it's audience.

A month we had our first meeting, I read the book and did some mock up concepts.

Making a Merman

Michel starts off as an 8 year old boy, transforms to fish-boy and over the span of the book grows into a young Merman:

Here's the current version of Michel we are going with:

As you can see he's not your typical Merman. The book is a real epic! It has Michel finding joy and harmony in new underwater home while coming to terms with his new fishier self. I thought it would interesting to have him look more "fishy" than the classic one half man, one half fish look.

His design had to carry over from how he looked when he was human:

So he shares Mike's smile dimples nose eyes and face shape.

Took quite a few designs to finalise Mike's look. Here are a couple of the drafts:

I knew I was on the right track once I drew one of the key scenes from the book:

I won't spoil the story for you but the contrast of Michel's fish appearance really shows you that he has no choice but to leave his life on land behind him.

Michel is so much fun to draw, as are all of the characters Terry has lovingly crafted into the book. You can check out Terry's work on his website:

http://www.terry-mcdonagh.com/

More updates coming soon :)