A wonderful project where I provided full character design, illustrations, Title and page design.
Tank's huge wings wake sleeping children when he tries to take their teeth from under their pillows. Will he ever succeed in collecting children’s teeth or will he find more exotic teeth to acquire? Join Tank as he travels and discovers that being different can lead to exciting and rare opportunities.
Commissioned by author Bethany Finnimore to illustrate her new picture book, I was very excited to bring her characters to life. Bethany had the idea for a story for about 10 years, she had noticed that there weren't any boy tooth fairies in the children's picture book world. And with a busy career as Primary School teacher and mum she never got round to doing anything with it.
Then while on maternity leave she bit the bullet and finished the story... and that's where I came in.
I spent quite a bit of time designing the wings as this would play an important part in the story and, let's face it, would take up most of the space in the pages.
Cover designs.
Bethany went with the rooftop scene in the end (shown last below), but the cover with Tank's wings crossing from front to back (shown first) was a close second. The jungle artwork scene was thought too busy or cluttered for the cover.
For the endpapers I came up with the idea of a trophy wall while bouncing ideas with the author. I thought of trophy walls usually found inside grand stately homes. The old wallpaper and various shaped trophy frames with tiny brass plates showing the name sometimes latin of the specimen displayed. I had fun thinking up the various teeth/tusks/fangs that could be mounted. I know every creature they are derived from, from a vipers fang to a giraffes molar.
