The way I found a great illustrator was by searching through blogs and social media websites. I specifically sought out artists from the animation industry, because I knew those cats could DRAW! After several weeks I found Italian artist
Nicola Sammarco. I was impressed with Nicola’s online portfolio, so I reached out to him via e-mail. I introduced myself, told him about my project, and asked if he was interested in being my Illustrator. After a few e-mail exchanges, Nicola was interested and agreed to create a “test” image for me, based on my description of how I envisioned
Dozi the Alligator to look in my children’s book version.
(The test illustration Nicola created of my new, younger Dozi the Alligator looked great! I knew I had found my illustrator! A week later, we signed a contract and started work on the book.)
(final illustration of first illustration for Dozi the Alligator)
