“Adventures Await In The Evergreen State” is about our main character Molli, a bright and curious young girl going on adventures with her grandparent’s around the Puget Sound region of Washington. They go to a Mariners game and Pike Place in Seattle, take ferries to the islands and spot Orcas, pick strawberries and tulips in Skagit Valley, fly over Lake Chelan in a little yellow airplane, and drive along picturesque coastline to watch the sunset at Rosario State Park. Illustrated entirely by hand in Procreate, this is my (and the author’s) first-ever children’s book. The main character Molli is based off the author’s in real life in-laws and daughter.

There was a steep learning curve, as I had never storyboarded an entire book – let alone fully illustrated one before. I mainly took this as a passion project, and an ultimate test of patience and my own skill sets. I also formatted the book, figured out the steps to self-publishing to assist the author, and created social media marketing materials. From start to publish, it took 18 months and approximately 400 work hours, everything from research and program learning, character design and storyboarding, copyediting, and of course the illustrations themselves, which involved reworks, edits, and reformatting.

I learned a huge amount from this project, and made many mistakes along the way that I’ll know how to properly navigate next time if I’m ever given the opportunity to illustrate another book!

SCOPE: Character Design, Storyboarding, Illustration, Formatting