Surge Protector: Illustrating Tom Sawyer

Some very exciting news I've been sitting on for a while: I got to illustrate Tom Sawyer for McGraw Hill Education! It's included in their 2021 Reading Mastery Transformations K-5 program, which is a reading intervention program. You know what's crazy about that? I was in a reading intervention program for a short time in fifth grade, where I read a part of Tom Sawyer and illustrated it for an assignment! I still remember drawing the wood grain on the pulpit in a church scene.

30 illustrations, 92 business days, over 500 reference photos, and close to 1000 hours of painting and drawing. Every photo and sketch and final psd stacked together weighs 13.8 gigabytes. This was the most challenging (and fun) project I've ever worked on.

Each batch of illustrations would release every two weeks, and there were reviews scheduled after every step. Once I finished sketches, for instance, I would have to wait for the review. The feedback on those images would come in the middle of the sketch phase for batch two, but instead of pushing deadlines out, they would layer over each other. Some weeks had me working on three batches at once! There were three things that got me across the finish line: reference, a very regimented schedule, and my team at McGraw Hill. Among other things, my manager bought precious days late in the project, and Max Yeager, a fellow illustrator, jumped on to complete six illustrations in the home stretch when everything really stacked up.

Tom, Huck, and Becky were professional child models. They were great! The rest of the players you see here were coworkers (remember when I said I couldn't do it without them?). Man, I miss being in the office with my friends.

So let's show some actual work, yeah?