Continuing the discussion on developing characters in my picture books, I wanted to mention the importance of secondary characters. All characters that appear in my stories are important, even if they aren’t the main characters of the story. I gather reference, do complete sketches, and then do color studies for these minor characters. Sometimes they only appear once in the book. But their role is crucial. They must have the same sense of life—the same uniqueness—as the main characters.
Here is a short series, sketches to final art, of five figures (including the dogs) who appear in “Pennies for Elephants.”
The role of the husband and wife, the “Snooty Couple”, is to ignore the little paper boy. Their gestures and clothes wordlessly portray people who aren’t interested in what the little boy is saying. Even their dog can’t be bothered to notice the paper boy’s dog. These characters add some humor. And even though they have no dialog, they convey meaning just by their attitude.
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