I completed the draft of the storyboard for The Prisoner of Carrot Castle and sent it to Nur (developer) for comment. Once we settled on the storyboard, it went on to Kate (illustrator) so she could get started on the scene art and come up with an estimate of her time.

My first video conference with Kate took place on January 11th via Skype. It was great to meet her and even see sketches she made of Aiden and the castle people. We both got very excited as we anticipated our creations coming to life on the iPad.

Step Two: Complete Storyboard
The storyboard for the app comprises dividing the picture book manuscript into scene/pages similar to a spread in a picture book. Each scene in the storyboard consists of story narration, art notes for illustrating the scene plus any spot illustrations used in animation, animation notes and sound. Two types of animation were defined:

• One-off animation—animation that occurrs with the narration (happens once).
• Touch animation—animation that happens when you touch a spot.

Below is an example of one of the scenes from the storyboard:

Scene 2

(Narrator) A loud, scruffy voice came from outside the cell, “Hey! What’s going on in there?” Aiden froze. What am I going to do? I’ve got to get out of here!

(Art Notes) Aiden with a frightened look staring at the cell door with hatch, chains to restrain prisoner hanging from cell wall

(Interactive Animation Notes) Touch hatch to hear “Hey! What’s going on in there?” Touch Aiden to see different pose, touch chains to make them shake and rattle

(Sound) “Hey! What’s going on in there?” Chains rattling

Eventually the storyboard will include the art/illustration for each scene.

We are forging ahead on our project. I hope you are enjoying following along. Keep tuning in to see The Prisoner of Carrot Castle come to life. If you missed Step 1, look here.

What kind of things do you like in an iPad children's app?

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Chris Pedersen and her husband live with a chocolate lab named Brandy in the beautiful Sierra foothills in California. With two grown children and three grandchildren, Chris turned her career of writing technical material—from manuals to magazine articles—into writing for children and crafting non-fiction stories from real life. She is working on a picture book, The Prisoner of Carrot Castle, developing it as an iPad app. Her other work in progress is a chapter book titled How I Survived Third Grade.

Published work includes Work and Wag, an article about dog jobs, appeared in Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse Jr. Magazine. Her dog story, A Saving Transformation, is in THE DOG NEXT DOOR by Revell. In addition, since conquering cancer with diet, Chris blogs about health, her heart passion, at Healthy Journey Café where she dishes out recipes and tips to achieve optimum wellness. Her writing journey is chronicled at Paws and Ponder.