Rudy Toot was the second book I wrote for Scholastic Australia and one of my favourite books to create. The idea came from a simple sketch of 3 "musical" elephants I did while idly sitting watching TV. I was actually supposed to be penning a different story, but when Rudy said "Hi" I sat and wrote the whole story in a single day. I submitted both stories and Rudy came out on top. The final version remains largely unaltered from my first original draft.
Original sketch that sparked the story
GALLERY
Page Progression
Below you can see the journey of the opening spread. As you can see things rarely ever go right first time around. It often takes lots of experimenting and fiddling to get things to the just right!
Early development
All images and text © Chris Kennett