At the start of 2018 I had the great pleasure of working on interior illustrations for OPERATION FROG EFFECT by Sarah Scheerger. (OUT FEBRUARY 26th!) The story is told in journal format by eight students, one of whom draws his entries - just about 40 of them. That’s where I come in. First, I needed to come up with designs for all of the students, their teacher, and their classroom frog. It was fun to read a longer book first to learn more about the kids (also, it’s an awesome story!) The final art was meant to be a little rough and sketchy, and done with just linework (no shading) so I needed to make sure there would be no confusion about who was who. After a few rounds of edits, we had our cast! (see above and below!)
I did a lot of the rough sketches on my iPad. I am the rare artist who doesn’t like drawing on my iPad, but I was grateful that I could work even while out for afternoon activities with my kids. Below are very rough sketches for two pages, followed by their finals. The page design and content were revised after first sketches, as well as art edits.
Below is another page, start to finish. This page featured mostly ‘other’ students that wouldn’t be confused with our main eight kids. Also, I enjoyed doing the lettering throughout the pages, as well as the chapter headers and names for all the journal entries. I can’t wait to get my hands on a final copy to see how it all came together. Many thanks to Sarah Scheerger for writing this fantastic story and being an A+ author for keeping me involved in all the book love on social media. Additional big thanks to Bob Bianchini at Random House for being an A+ art director all around. Be sure to visit Sarah’s website to read more about the book and look for it in stores on February 26th (or even better, pre-order since it means so much to authors and then you won’t forget when it comes out!)