Early Concepts for Duck, Death and the Tulip

Re imagining  Duck, Death and the Tulip has some very open ended possibilities. Most of the illustrations do not have any depth of field. I want to redesign the book to include animated and interestingly creative backgrounds. Grass, leaves and wind can all be animated easily and are very effective at engaging the audience.

I want the interactions to be as hands on as possible, in the above image the viewer would literally turn Death's head to look at the Duck, the sentences are merely ques for user interaction. So the viewer will rotate Death's head, and once in position the rest of the senses prompts and story line will be revealed. 

The crow could also be used as a story driver and cool piece of interaction, although not entirely important in the paper back version it is still a significant item to include. Perhaps the crow is flying around the heads of the Duck and Death as they are in the tree tops and the user has to push the crow to have it animate and perch on the tree top next to Death in order to continue the animation. 

Shaking the screen to change the weather as the narrator indicates the changing of weather from summer to winter would be interesting too. 

When death sends Duck on her way down the river the user has to blow the iPad to initiate the animation of the Duck travelling off into the distance, eventually triggering the last scene in the story. 

When Duck gets frozen in place when she realizes its Death standing opposite her, the user has can shake the iPad to continue the story. 

When Death places the tulip Duck the user has to press and drag the tulip into Ducks chest to continue the story.

Having the tree top shake and sway from the left to right as the accelerometer reacts to the movement of the ipad could be an interesting touch. Leaves and such could float down off the screen or accumulate on the grass below.

Text boxes that do not need a certain interaction in order to progress the story can be simple text boxes that the user can swipe off the screen to go to the next part of the story text.

When Duck says she can see the pond from atop the tree the user can tilt the iPad forward to change the angle of a seemingly two dimensional scene to reveal the pond below. 

Remaking the environments and layout of each scene will be of huge importance when remaking this story, I want to populate the scenes with the existing artwork but change it in a way to create more of a mood for the story. I envision a sort of Tim Burton / Nightmare before Christmas art style so a lot of items and visual elements will need to be made to create this style whilst also staying true to the feel and simplicity of the original.