A Basketball Story – Interior 12

This is a very morality focused storyline, if you haven’t gathered yet. Since the kids goofed off so much before, it catches up to them. They aren’t paying much attention during the game, assuming they’ll win with no effort, and so they lose the final championship game.

Two comic book panels.  The first is a basketball game between the Jackrabbits and the Sea Turtles.  The Sea Turtles are playing hard, but the Jackrabbits aren't paying much attention.  The second panel has the Sea Turtles with the championship trophy and the Jackrabbits sad and shocked that they were defeated.

A Basketball Story – Interior 11

Here’s the 11th interior.

The team is in a locker room at the Sea Turtle’s school. They’re relaxed and goofing off a little. Nothing serious, but they also don’t seem very concerned about the up-coming game.

Seven members of the Jackrabbits youth basketball team are waiting in a locker room at the Sea Turtle's school.  Two are sitting on top of the lockers, one taking a photo of the other.  Another is sitting in an open locker, smiling at a teammate's phone as she takes a selfie of both of them.  Two players seem to be asleep.  One is laying on his stomach on the bench, playing on his phone.
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A Basketball Story – Interior 10

Here’s the 10th interior.

The coach substitutes at the Sea Turtles’ school and observes that the team is really working well together. They’ll be a real challenge to the Jackrabbits next time they face them.

The coach stands inside a brick building, looking out the window.  Outside, the Sea Turtles youth basketball team practices on the blacktop court on the playground.

A Basketball Story – Interior 8

Here’s a two-page spread. You can see the kids are goofing off. Not really doing any harm, but not doing what they’re supposed to be doing either. In the story, at this point, they’re starting to think they’re undefeatable and they don’t have to work at it anymore. This will cause problems later.

Again, this is from the latest illustration project I finished, A Basketball Story, for Entrepreneur Media Inc.

An illustration of the corner of a school gymnasium.  A kids' basketball team lounges around and goofs off.  The scoreboard shows that they won the last game by 20 to 7.  The coach looks on in disapproval.

A Basketball Story – Interior 7

This image covers about a page and a half, with the gutter running between the boy leaning against the wall and the poster. The gray wall color extends all the way to the left, with text overlaid in that empty space.

Aside from the cover, this is our first and only close-up of members of the Sea Turtles team. They’re discussing how, if they work very hard, they can keep the Jackrabbits from going 10 – 0 for the season.

Again, this is for the picture book, titled A Basketball Story: Always Be Humble, which I just finished illustrating for Entrepreneur Media Inc.

In a school hallway, three members of the Sea Turtles basketball team stand around a poster showing the Mid-Season League Standings for four teams.  One boy leans on the wall, the girl has her hands on both boys shoulders.  And the other boy faces away from the viewer with one hand in a fist.

A Basketball Story – Interior 5

A wide view of the team’s first game for the picture book project I just finished. The text for this page fits in the white space over the bleachers on the left side. This image gives you a good view of the logo I designed for the Jackrabbits. This image took longer than you’d think because, even though the people are tiny figures there are 28 of them and most of them had to be drawn and colored consistently with the depictions of those same characters on other pages. Uniforms do save time on coloring, though.

A wide view of a children's basketball game in a school gymnasium.  A few spectators and the players on the bench cheer from the bleachers while players from both teams hustle on the court.

A Basketball Story – Interior 4

And another interior for Entrepreneur Media, Inc.’s picture book. This two-page spread only has a little bit of text, so there’s room for it in the white space over the bleachers. Coach miles is taking his new team through drills.

Four kids are practicing dribbling basketballs under their coach's supervision.

A Basketball Story – Interior 3

Here’s the next interior for Entrepreneur Media, Inc.’s picture book. Another two-page spread, with text to be overlaid on the blank spot to the upper left. The children are eagerly gathering around Coach Miles.

Children dressed in shorts and T-shirts eagerly gather around their basketball coach.

A Basketball Story – Interior 2

Here’s the next interior image of the picture book I just finished for Entrepreneur Media, Inc. This one’s a two-page spread, with text overlaid on the blank wall on the upper left. The children are excited about basketball tryouts!

A cartoon illustration of a classroom of children raising their hands for Basketball Tryouts.

A Basketball Story – Interior 1

Here’s the first interior page of the picture book I just finished for Entrepreneur Media, Inc. This image will have text overlaid over the sky and maybe the tops of the buildings. This is a nice spring day.