1. This is the Chris Wahl shark. His shark, with the plain blue background, is the closest I have found to what I am seeking. This shark seems to jump right off the page. The shark also looks incredibly 3D. Moreover, it has a good amount of facial expression without looking entirely silly. However, this shark is too fat, the proportions are not realistic, the teeth are sandtiger shark-looking and not Great White Shark-type. But still, this work is obviously done by a master-level artist, and it shows. I am seeking this level of quality or higher with greater realism, yet with equal amount of character/emotion.
3. This one is done by a Japanese lady named Yoshida. This shark has the general appearance of a Great White, and is based more on reality than Chris Wahls's shark. But in asking 20 friends and art students to compare this for me, not one picked this Yoshida drawing as equal or better than the Chris Wahl shark. I cannot go with art this mediocre as I consider this a groundbreaking work and feel it deserves something special, as I am trying to make a work that will have the longevity of a classic.
And on top of all of this, I am also seeking to make the background scenery behind these sharks/seal characters a true work of art in the tradition of Christopher Lassen's ocean-themed paintings. So not only would these paintings have a truly magical illustration of a Great White character, but they would be beautiful paintings that one would want to order framed paintings of to hang on the wall. No children's book has ever had the quality of paintings I am talking about. This means that when a parent is asked by their child to read this book to them for the 100th time, the paintings will be spectacular enough that the parent won't mind going through the book again and again. Plus there would be adult-oriented humor embedded in the captions of these paintings. In short, an adgy humor, children's book with Lassen-esque paintings.
So now you see the challenge? How does one produce a shark with the realism of a photograph, yet with the character of a Chris Wahl shark, complete with human facial expression? And to do all of this on top of showing the ferocity and monstrous power of the animal, that simply cannot be captured by a camera. For a diver, the mere girth and mass of the animal, combined with the Great White Shark appearance sets this apart from any other shark, and I have dove with most sharks outside a Great White. But in a picture, a Great White often looks no more unnerving than a reef shark.
What is being proposed here, is more or less an entirely new genre children's book -- one aimed at accomplishing several goals that are currently not being met in this field.
In short, this will be a groundbreaking, "edgy, more sophisticated children's book" with the humor of the infamously ingenious Far Side Comics, and the beauty of a Christopher Lassen ocean-themed painting.
Goals of this work:
Instilling the idea that everything in the natural world is interconnected and interdependent. The idea here is to use the charisma of the fascinating creature that is the Great White Shark, along with world-class illustration, and a humorous tone to sugarcoat bits of business, emotional intelligence, biology, ecology, and zoology into a story that is interesting enough to disguise the learning. This is more or less how my mother taught me to eat vegetables, though in later years it was realized that one could just purchase chocolate by itself without having to eat a choco-vegi combon. Moreover, this address the point that often confuses children -- the seemingly callous and brutal side of nature. The idea is to help children understand that predator and prey relationship. The 28-full page illustrations by a world-class artist in the Lassen tradition, will in and of itself, serve to make this book entirely appropritate for an adult, solely on the basis of fine art. These paintings would be of such quality that there would be tremendous merchandising opportunities for framed artwork from the book, along with toys based on the shark character. Each of these paintings will have a comical title and a humorous caption along the lines of the infamously ingenious Far Side Comics of the past. These jokes would mainly be targeted towards the adults, who might be reading this book to their children. And in this way, the parents will find it far less burdensome to read to their children. The story also contains less advanced, more obvious humor aimed at children while the majority of the painting captions would be targeted towards the parents.
A percentage of all book and merchandise sales will go to shark conservation organizations.
