For the children’s book series “Sammy’s Big Adventure” written by Pete Mravetz, I was hired to create character designs for the title character and all the supporting characters. The characters were to be drawn over images taken by the author of each town or place that the lead character, Sammy, visited with his family. This book put a spotlight on Houston, Texas.
In addition, I had to draw the characters interacting with the photographs. It was challenging to have the characters act like they were looking at the photograph but also still face the reader. As the client is a self-published author, I was able to help them save some money by reusing some character poses. Like in hand-drawn animation, the body and faces were drawn once, then arms, legs, and expressions were changed over the base drawing. The process worked well and I was able to stay within the client’s budget.
The image carousel below highlights several pages from the book. You may click on any image to see it full-size.
