The Tip-Off is a young adult novel that I worked on for PragerU Kids. It is the first in a series of books that follow the growing pains of Jonathan Spencer as he traverses a new school, the responsibilities of becoming a teenager, etc.
This project was a fun chance to coordinate with the writers to express their vision for the book, and I couldn't have done it without huge hustle and support from Ben, who tackled the many interior chapter header illustrations.
One of the writers who worked on these books created a character development theme based around an old pair of chucks. His idea was to feature the shoes on the covers for the books, which I liked and thought it would be cool to spell out the titles using the shoe laces.
I did these initial sketches on Procreate and tried to capture the movement of the shoes as if they were being worn during a basketball game. Too bad for these, we ended up going in a different direction for the final cover that was more Pixar-inspired, which you can see below.
