This is a post about a project I’ve been participating in for a few months. It’s a noir-style children’s book in which nursery rhymes meet police procedural. A friend and client of mine, R. Andrew Heidel (owner of famous The Way Station bar), wrote True Crimes from Rhymes Square years ago and finally found an illustrator who was right for the job— Eric Hamilton. They hired me on as the publication designer.
Eric spent months working on loads of thumbnails and sketches to work out the characters (of which there are many), as well as working out the illustrations. He provided me with no less than four thumbnails for each page/spread. I worked with the copy and layout design to arrive at a good balance of text-to-image, and Andy and I art directed during this process.
The book is being produced with the help of a Kickstarter campaign, and will be a sort of work-in-progress limited-edition hardcover, comprised of rough drawings, polished pencil illustrations, and final painted illustrations. It will serve as proof-of concept when Andy approaches publishers to create a series based on this initial story.
More images after the jump!
The Kickstarter campaign has reached— and exceeded— its minimum goal, but we are still eager to achieve the full amount to both produce the book and pay us for all of the hours that we’ve put into this project. In addition to the KS campaign, there is a Booster sale of tee shirts featuring one of the most fascinating characters, Spider.
We received a jolly email just a few days ago telling us we were a featured Kickstarter project, but there are only FOUR days left— the KS express on October 15. Go have a look, and support out book project to get your own limited edition, signed copy of this in-progress book.
There are loads more process images in the “Updates” tab from the illustrator, so you’ll get more sneak peeks at the character design and development.
e daggar art: THE MUSEUM 
Superlative Work! A great talent are you! Cheers! – Douglas
Thank you, Douglas, and likewise!