Idea/storyboard/concept art

Our semester project: create a 30 second animation from start to finish (concept, modeling, rigging, lighting, etc.). The only constraints: it has to be based on a short poem or limerick, it has to have 2 organic characters, a mood shift, and at least 4 props.

My first task was to find a suitable poem from which I could create a simple story. I spent hours at Barnes & Noble looking at children's poetry books. I found a few good ones, and for a while I thought I would create one about a guy on a small boat who has so much anti-shark stuff but ends up being eaten by an octopus or something. I decided that this idea would be a bit difficult to execute and finally found a poem I really liked:

"In the window of the washroom
at our school yesterday,
A little bug was crawling,
in its little buggy way.

I whispered in its tiny ear,
to not make any noise,
because it was a ladybug,
and the washroom is for boys."

- Lois Simmie

We had about half a week to come up with the storyboard and concept art, but I needed to go to Austin for the weekend for my girlfriend Alex's birthday, so I ended up working feverishly to create this storyboard:

The next thing I had to do was create some concept art. Here is the front/side of the ladybug:

and here is the front/side of the boy: