Two years ago we launched a Kickstarter campaign to share a simple children’s book about empathy.
Little did we know we would have it fully funded in the first 6 days and continue to exceed the campaign goal by another $3,000!
We were so grateful for the people who took a chance on us. Since then, we have gone to a second printing, lead workshops on how to start a successful side project, done multiple book readings, and the knowledge I gained has become an ongoing Adobe Illustrator workshop that has lead to multiple conference opportunities, and new friends.
This morning, after working on the second book, we launched another campaign. The goals, once again, is to presell enough of them to get them printed. The second book is called Hip Hooray, Hippo! and follows a similar story as the first, only this time, we are teaching kids that it’s good to celebrate along with others when they get the first-place prize you had to settle for second or third. When good things happen to others, our choice is to be jealous and give into bitterness or to recognize their achievement and celebrate along with them. This isn’t just a good message for children. We could all benefit from cultivating empathy, no matter our age.
Illustrating this book has been so much fun! Here are some sketches and a few of the illustrations that are contained in the book. I always start with sketches in Procreate. You’ll see that some of them were pretty close and tierces changed as we laid out the book and mixed things up a bit.
Winning first prize at the fair ended up being very close to the original sketch and layout.
After this initial sketch we added the streamers to really add motion to the spread. Really happy with the way this one turned out.
We ended up flipping this one so the pacing of the book was better but it’s still pretty close to the original sketch.
We really changed this one up! I referred back to the Chin Up, Chinchilla board game spread for this. If you have the first book, you’ll know what I mean. There were several opportunities to tie the two books together.
Once again, this project taught me more than I’ll ever get paid for. Side projects like this aren’t often lucrative but the benefits of taking a risk and using it as an opportunity for professional growth and community engagement are awesome.
Thanks to the people who gave us great feedback and insight along the way and, most of all, thanks to Beth Stafford who has trusted me with her story again! You’ve been amazing to work with and I’m thankful for the opportunity.
For more information about our books, visit our website at www.happycargobooks.com