'Dream Defenders' Ideas & Research...

Now I've got a rough proposal together I thought I'd start thinking about some of the details of the story.

Where the team are based?

• They live in the 'Land of Nod', a realm children have access to when they dream. There they wait for the alarm to go off, telling them there's a child that needs their help.
• They live in a secret base in the real world where they track children's dreams. They have to enter the dream world by other means.

How do they enter dreams?

• They use a trampoline that catapults them into dream world.
• They have to use their patented B.E.D (Brilliant Entrance to Dreams) technology, which also happens to look a lot like a bed. It travels via legs OR they enter the dream world by crawling under it.
• They create a wormhole into the world of dreams.
• They live in a base deep in the Land of Nod where they wait to be called out into a particular child's dream. They then use a special teleport to get them there quickly but it can sometimes be unpredictable...
• They fly from place to place in the Land of Nod using their flying machine

What do they look like?

I'm not sure yet but so far I'm thinknig that they could be a combination of different animals, each one would be different but they wouldn't necessarily be too much like one animal. This is something I'll discover more on once I start drawing out some ideas.

Winsor McCay's Little Nemo

I was pointed in the direction of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo comics due to my idea being based in dreams. I had a look into the original comics, the short animation that Winsor McCay produced in 1911 and the later feature length Animation. Below are some influential images from all three:

I enjoyed the film and the short animation is shockingly impressive for the time it was made, however there's a certain whimsical charm and innocent humour that runs through the comics that I think isn't entirely matched by the others.   I love that no matter how absurd the situation can be, there's always a logical explanation because it's a dream. One example is the bed running on its legs and it's explained away because "A bed likes to get out once in a while!" I would love to carry over as similar charm in my work, a kind of child-friendly abstract absurdity. Let's see! :P