Project brief
Create an original take on Jack and the Beanstalk as a picture book. Include copy, dummy book and one colour spread.
Deliverables
Copy of up to five hundred words. Dummy book consisting of twelve black and white spreads. One colour spread.
Creative process
Science fiction is one of our favourite genres so we thought what would be more original that setting the famous fairy tale in space?
And so our Jack is a foxy Robin-Hood-like character whose mum needs to sell their Galaxy Tours business. For that purpose she tells him to fly Milky White – their cow-shaped space rocket – to the market planet. On his way Jack is flagged down by a Scientist whose own rocket crashed on a nearby asteroid. He asks Jack to let him have Milky White in exchange for five top-science beans that will help him change his luck. The rest follows pretty much as we know, with interesting sci-fi twists to every location, object and character. Jack steals from the Giant to liberate his mother from debt, liberate the Giantess and the Scientist from the abusive Giant and provide a safe space space aboard Milky White for everyone.
We chose to include plenty of visual detail in the drawings to excite both the children and the adults reading to them. All the characters are well fleshed-out, with their own individual personalities, skills and props. They all express a wide range of emotions. Interesting angles and a fluid spacial geometry are used to combine both the magical and the sci-fi feel of our story. Bold colours and shapes define the objects and the characters making them fun and accessible.
Tools and media
Clip Studio Paint and Adobe Illustrator.
