Story
Recall
Napshack would've provided airline passengers with somewhere to have a short sleep, without having to get a hotel room. This would've been particularly well-suited for those in-transit/between flights during the day.
These storyboards are some professional work that I undertook in 2000. While working as a waiter in The Pheasantry (Pizza Express). Nick, an assistant manager, mentioned that he was trying to obtain capital for a new business. It was a happy coincidence for us both, as I needed some (paid) drawing practise while he needed a way to pitch his idea to potential investors.
The style had to be cartoony but also realistic, so I chose head-to-body proportions of 1:6 and the cover art for The Best of Blur album by Julian Opie for inspiration. I filled areas with flat colour using Photoshop. Unfortunately, I no longer have the original coloured files, so I've posted scans of the printouts, which were done on glossy paper. Consequently, the colours don't quite look the way they should, such as the yellow skin on the first page.
Copyright 01.02.07 JVC | Top of page
Storyboards
Reception
Nick called this area 'welcome'. I suggested that the name of each area start with the same letter, but he had the final say on what they were called, so I subversively left out the name of this area altogether.
I made the clothes slightly futuristic and, from this page, we gather that people in the future wave with their fingers splayed ;) The blonde receptionist has a quirky hairstyle that I later used for a character in ff!. She keeps track of when your next flight leaves with her PDA, which also doubles as a credit card reader (panel 2 on page 4).
Relax
Nick wanted the sleep area to be called 'relax', rather than my suggestion, 'rest'. An architect designed the sleep 'pods', which were meant to be more spacious than the cubicles that Japanese businessmen use, which might seem too claustrophobic to Westerners. Per square metre, airport space is among the most expensive in the world, so the pods needed to be tightly packed together. Consequently, the pods have to be heavily padded to make them sound-proof.
The architect's design for the interior was too detailed, so I simplified it for story clarity. I muted the colours in the last panel to inidicate that the lights are off, but the printouts that I have don't demonstrate this particularly well.
Refresh
Panel 1 is my favourite of the entire storyboard, I think it's the perspective. The door handle in panel 2 is a good example of how I colour-coded each area. The architect didn't provide a design for the inside of the 'refresh' cubicle, so I made it match my simplified sleep pod. I used a Pointillist-like filter to give the impression of a shower screen (and to tone-down the naked body!) The soap is only blue for the sake of composition. Annoying to me, in the complimentary washbag, I included a toothbrush, but forgot the razor.
Refuel
Originally just called 'cafe', this was the only renaming that Nick was enthusiastic about. In the bottom panel, the little girl isn't floating, that's just a printer smudge. The area appears to be a prime spot for hitting-on business women! Toby liked to call this project 'shagshack' and, after the innuendo directed at Virgin's sleeper train service, I'm sure the tabloids would've used that one too.