A Net in Time

YES! It's time for another Art Books from My House to Yours. I really need to take the time to provide you with links to all of them, but not today. :) Today's book is Designing With Pixar: 45 Activities to create your own characters, worlds and stories.

Anyways, when I first saw this 80 page I wondered at its usefulness, and then I really started looking at it. The author Ms. Emily Haynes takes the beloved pixar characters and uses them to help children design better characters, worlds and stories. I'm going to be using this book with my lad to help him once he finishes his story, to turn it into a book. :) Won't that be cool?

Using pixar characters we are drawn into determining colours for characters skin, hair, clothing etc.   How do those colours make you feel, what do they draw out of you.

We are then led to think about shapes, how does the shape of the character change your thoughts about them.   Often the words "Imagine if...."

What makes your character(s) interesting?   How would you draw them to show those interests?

I won't say this book is huge and very in-depth, but it does excite the curiousity.   What if Nemo wasn't orange and white, would it have affected how we thought of him?   What if he'd been a moray eel instead?   Or if Brave's Merida had long blond tresses rather than a wild mass of long red-haired curls?

Colour and shape influence what we think and feel about characters (and perhaps about the people around us... like the book we are listening to right now where the main character likes to dress in greys and browns so she won't be noticed).   Could such a character be drawn and how would you draw such a person?

It's a simple and yet intriguing concept don't you think?

This book comes with a ton of pages to write and colour on. To Design your set and to think through changes you would make to movies they have put together. You see this book is the result of work done by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Pixar Animation Studios when they worked to put together an exhibit. The exhibit was all about Pixar's design process. Research, Iteration and collaboration. A Story need to have appeal and believability.

Research - when you look to the world to help inspire your own work.
Iteration - playing with colours and shapes to create your own worlds and characters
Collaboration - working with other people to help tell a story.

The goal of the book: to help people tell their own stories.

To that end, they use their own characters, such as Eve from Wall-E

We are asked to imagine that she has met an alien intruder, what does he look like, his shape and colour? Does the mean friend or foe?

Emotions can be different colours, like red for anger, green for digust.

What colours could other emotions be? Like Joy or Sadness or excitement?

So grab up this book, this inventive activity book that draws you into the world of Pixar and discovery, talk and think about what colours and shapes evoke in your and others. Work together, create your own stories and worlds.