Pied Piper of Hamelin

Sketches of The Pied Piper of Hamelin 1-17-2012

I'm working on a storybook for the Spokane Comicon, and this is my sketch dump so far.
The book will be The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and so far I'm having fun with the Piper. I based his design on several illustrations I found in research, particularly the pattern cloak.
The man in the hat is supposed to be the mayor of Hamelin. I'm having a hard time finding costumes for 13th century German local officials, so I just made a wild stab. A lot of pictures I found had important people in hats, so I made a funny hat, I hope it doesn't look too "Russian." I like the mayor's look, but I'm sure the clothes will change when I find more reference images.

I may draw a couple more officials, then some children, and I'll be ready to illustrate. I've divided the story text into 9 pages. The book will be laid out with text on the left page, and a full page illustration on the right. I also think I might draw rats crawling around the text as well.

Another fun idea I came up with is using a hole puncher to cut out "bites" from the corner of the cover when this is complete.

I'd love some suggestions! If this goes well, I may have to make more pocket storybooks.