How Florabunda Became a Cartoon
Last week I explained how Florabunda got the dress that she is wearing on my newest book’s cover. This week I want to explain why she is on the cover of a book that contains only patterns for an eighteen inch (forty-five centimeter) doll.
I wrote this book for elementary students to use with an adult. I tried to write clear instructions for a consistent progression of skills. To make the book more interesting, I wanted to include some light humor. I also wanted to explain some techniques in a boxed area of the text rather than with the general flow of instructions. I decided to use a cartoon version of Florabunda for humor and to introduce the technique boxes.
I tried to draw a cartoon Florabunda, but I do not have the artistic skill. My husband helped me turn photos of Florabunda into cartoons.
First we photographed the doll in several appropriate poses. Here is the first photo that we used:
Then my husband experimented with photo-processing. After some frustration, he found that he needed to shrink the photo before working on it. Then he used line detection on the smaller picture to make a black and white image. One program that does line detection is call “Charcoal.”
His drawing program contains cartoon balloons that will accept text and change shape. Now I have a cartoon version of Florabunda.
Florabunda has many jobs. She is a cute little doll that is fun to play with or collect. She can also be a doll that belongs to a larger doll. She stars in a story about modern little girls and another story about princesses. (For a free download of the stories, check the bottom of my Patterns Page.) Her newest job is to teach sewing skills.
Remember that you can download patterns for Florabunda and her friends on my Pattern Page. If you are only interested in Florabunda and would like a hard copy of her patterns, you can order a book with all her patterns from the My Books Page of this blog or from Amazon.
