So I’ve restarted this three times now and finally I’ve got a good idea! The brief in question is to create children’s picture book that helps explain a harsh or difficult subject. I’ve gone with the idea of accepting yourself and being okay with how you look.
I’ve decided to tell this story through the means of animals and the way they look, seeing as there are so many different types of animals, I feel like this is a good place to create the story within. The story revolves around a Panda named Barry living in a zoo with all his friends. He notices that the other animals are getting a lot more attention from visitors so he hatches a plan to change this. He paints his fur to look like those around him to see if this will gain him more attention, the plan fails and he relies on his Panda friend to help him, who tells him that being himself is more than enough to get attention and that he should be proud of the way he looks.

My main place for inspiration is that of ‘I Want My Hat Back’ by Jon Klaassen. The main piece of inspiration for my story is that of the artwork as it’s very simple yet effective in exploring the emotion of the characters. I also like the backgrounds as once again they are very simple, minimal yet they seem to give the art so much more character. It also allows the reader to focus on the beautiful animal designs.

I want my book to be similar to this, I would like to have a minimal background and a lot going on with the character designs.