As I mentioned in my last blog post, I didn’t plan on drawing the illustrations for my book myself. I could have, but I would never have been happy with the drawings I made and it would have taken forever for me to do. So I set out to look for illustrators.

There are a lot of illustrators and at first I wasn’t sure where to start. I wanted a nice kid-friendly cartoony style with animals as the main characters (I wanted animals so that my kids and other kids could relate to them). I was also happy to pay more for art that fit what I was looking for.

After thinking about it a little bit, I realized the perfect choice. A book about board games illustrated in a cartoony style? Who better to illustrate it than the person who makes a comic (Semi-Coop) about board games? I looked through Rachel Kremer’s portfolio and was excited to see that she had some really cute animal illustrations she had done that were similar to what I was imagining for my book. So I contacted her and she was excited to work on a board game children’s book!

I had also contacted some board game artists (of children’s games) whose style I liked. What was important for me was finding an artistic style that fit with what I was going for, plus having good back and forth communication since I anticipated a lot of discussion about the illustrations and the book. I was so lucky and happy that Rachel agreed to work with me and was as excited about the project as I was! So far the sketches she’s sent me are better than what I imagined – she’s had a lot of great ideas for the illustrations that I wouldn’t have thought of, and it’s neat seeing how she takes the rough storyboard that I made and makes it into an actual scene.

My initial rough sketch of a spread vs. Rachel’s sketch – I especially love the wagon!

I’ve loved seeing all of Rachel’s sketches and each time she sends me an update I get so excited that this is all coming together.

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