I thought that this year's Tomie dePaola contest prompt looked interesting in its own right and would be worth having a go at, even if it's mainly for my own portfolio. In case you haven't seen it the link is here: http://www.scbwi.org/awards/tomie-depaola-award/
And this is the brief:
"This year’s assignment is to cast yourself, as a child, in a picture book. Show your autobiographical character in a scene and make sure to convey the emotion of your character. The viewer should be able to read the emotion of the character immediately and clearly.
No words or captions are allowed in the image."
So, I had a few thoughts, drawing on some of the things I remember as a young child. There were a few animal related encounters which were memorable for me - once meeting an elephant at the zoo, another time meeting a penguin, another time meeting a HUGE Great Dane when I was really into dogs.... but although I thumbnailed some of them, I'm not sure 'girl meets animal' has a lot of depth to it, story-wise.
So I then focused on a couple of other ideas - one idea showing that I was really into reading books, and another idea showing my first day of school. For bureaucratic reasons I started primary school a term later than everyone else, so most of the other children there had all made friends by the time I started. So I thought a scene showing a feeling of being apart somehow, could be interesting. But I'd appreciate any feedback on what you think is most interesting/appealing!
My initial thumbs:
And then I developed these two a bit more (so you can actually see what's going on!)
Any thoughts/critique welcome...