The Shelby Centipede series features Shelby and her friends as they learn about sharing, caring, and family.
Shelby and her siblings have a lot of shoes 😉 so I love that proceeds from the sale of these books go to help an organization called Soles for Souls, providing shoes for those without.
I started illustrating these stories on book number 2 and kept the bright style and colors of the original.
You can find all 5 of Dallas L. Dixon’s books on Amazon.
Silas Watts, The Highly Electric Lightning Bug, is the tale of Silas, a little bug who uses his unusually bright green glow to rescue his mother when she is kidnapped by an evil bat. This first illustration created was actually from the end of the story, but we wanted to start there and post on Facebook to see what fans thought.
Author, Brenda, sent me this fun image of a real bug that looks like it’s wearing a pilot helmet and goggles. She asked if we could base our main guy on this.
Here’s our storyboard… I think these pencil sketches are always my favorite part.
One challenge of this project was to get a glowing neon green that would print successfully, and I credit my dear friend Rebecca who helped me do that.
This collection of stories, featuring little Mary and her family, tackle a range of topics that could be hard to grasp… such as letting your light shine like a firefly, knowing Jesus as your Shepherd, and what it means to share a yoke with Jesus.
Mary, the author, and I worked out a storyboard for each book. And then I used Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, to turn those pencil sketches into digital artwork.
My goal was to make the illustrations bright, simple, and printable. I needed to convey emotions like joy that matched the author’s vision. Another challenge was creating some characters that looked like real family members.
All six of the Mary Perrone Davis books are available on Amazon.
