Pig that becomes a Viking. Even though I hope to make more illustrated picture books in the future, this was the final set of illustrations in the four book series. I have always loved the spirit of adventure the viking can represent so it was fitting to end with because creating this set of picture books was a great exploration for myself in that I had never done anything like this before. It also symbolizes looking ahead to new explorations as making these books has given me the confidence and improved upon my skills to want to try new creative adventures.

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Big dog that becomes a pilot. This is art from the second book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features pets and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

The big dog was not originally going to be an airplane pilot. I think I had roughed out an idea of her being a space ship fighter pilot, but did not like how that was working out in the process and decided to go a different direction. I kept her as a pilot, and after giving her a scarf, goggles, old leather helmet and a tongue flapping in the wind, it became one of my favorite pieces. 

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Snail that becomes an astronaut. This is art from the first book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features insects and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

Sapce has always fascinated me, plus I am a huge Star Wars fans so I had to get some kind of space / sci-fi element into my first children’s book. The slow moving snail worked out well because I was able to add the rockets to her shell. This was also one of the few illustrations with a secondary character.

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A duck that can dance. This is art from the fourth book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features farm animals and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

My daughter was taking dance lessons at the time I was in the middle of making this book so I thought making one of the charaters a dancer center stage would be a nice addition for her. 

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Lion that becomes a wizard. This is art from the third book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features zoo animals and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

This became one of my favorite overall imagination pieces. If you look closely, you can see characters from other books. If you glaze into the crystal ball you will see the dragon from the first book in the scene with the Bee Knight. Then if you look at the open pages of the book to the viewers left of the wizard, you will find the hamster fairy princess. Perhaps it is a spell book and it list one of her spells! It’s all up to the imagination.

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Penguin that becomes a basket ball player.  This is art from the third book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features zoo animals and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

Going to see the penguin’s at the St. Louis Zoo is always a must-see stop when I have taken my daughter. It is usually one of the first stops we make because the line tends to get longer through out the day. So a penguin had to be one of the animals I used in my book featuring zoo animals. Knowing I wanted to use basketball, I thought it would be a funny match-up using a “flightless” bird to soar through the air slam dunking the ball. 

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Parrot that becomes a fire fighter. This is art from the second book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features pets and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

Along with fantasy heroes, I also wanted to include real-life heroes as part of the imagination characters I used throughout my book series. My hope is that it can be a talking point with kids when they are being read to. In this book I wanted that real-life hero to be a fire fighter. The parrot worked well in that I could easily see the bird climbing to the top of a tall latter to reach a high up building. Plus he looked pretty good in red!

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Spider that becomes a cowboy. This is art from the first book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features insects and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations. The old American West has always been one of my favorite backdrops for storytelling, so I knew I wanted to include that imagination theme in my first kids book.  The spider worked out well as I was able to not only include the icon cowboy hat on top of his head, but to give him eight cowboy boots at the end of each of his dangling legs.

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Mother Alaska. This design is a tribute to the state in which I was born. I was only there a brief time as a baby and have no memories from that period, but I have always felt a strong connection and a desired longing to my birth state. I have since been back and have gotten to experience Alaska as an adult. Being more that just a location on the map where I entered the world, it is almost like a spiritual state of mind. Alaska is nature at it’s best. Beautiful, wild, free.

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/229145-mother-alaska-the-last-frontier?store_id=48571

https://society6.com/product/mother-alaska-the-last-frontier_hoody?sku=s6-3503378p18a7v95a8v36a19v144a100v500

Horse that becomes a genie. This is art from the fourth book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features farm animals and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

A horse is such a majestical animal, so he seemed a natural fit to give him magical powers with the ability to grant wishes. I also thought it might be funny to imagine a large horse genie inside a small magic lamp. With the horse illustration I was able to get away with having this animal stand-up on his hind legs, which it turn gave me the opportunity to give him the more genie like lower half of his body, which you can still see coming out of the lamp, in his imagined character counterpart.

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Elephant that becomes a disco dancer. This is art from the third book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features zoo animals and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

This is my one imagination character that went a bit outside the norm of what is common children’s characters. I wanted something that would be fun and would force the readers to do some extra explaining about who the character is by using their own imaginations. With the colorful dance floor, white suit, gold tusk and platform shoes, the elephant made a great subject to transform into a disco dancer. I just hope he does not break that dance floor!

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Corporate Multipurpose Brochure. This is a general use corporate business brochure / booklet template design I created that can be used for promotion, marketing and identity purposes. I strived for a clean layout that would be easy for the reader to follow. The main purpose for any of my pre-made templates is to help others save time. 

Brochures, booklets and printed pieces in general are not what they use to be and have become more of a supplemental marketing piece, but they are still an easy way to give out important business information.  

https://creativemarket.com/MitchLinhardt/7540-Corporate-Multipurpose-Brochure

Hamster that becomes a fairy princess. This is art from the second book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features pets and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

The fairy princess was a tribute to my daughter, who was four years old when I created this character. I tried to come up with an imaginary world I thought she would love to go to and as I was making it could see this being her favorite section in the book. When finished and she saw it for the first time I ended up being correct. It was her favorite.

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Butterfly that becomes a baseball player. This is art from the first book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features insects and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

My daughter’s favorite insect at time of of making this book was the butterfly, so of course I had to include one as a featured insect. And as far as sports go, baseball is my first love which made it the sport I would use as an imagination character in my first book. The red hat is a tribute to my favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals. 

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You’re name is Thurman Merman? For those not familiar, the name Thurman Merman is taken from the movie “Bad Santa” starring Billy Bob Thornton as Bad Santa.  With some of my t-shirt and gift design ideas I try to focus on movies, tv shows or pop culture that are not as main stream as other items out there, but are something I am a fan of.

I consider this a mash-up idea as the "Hello my name is" tag has been around for a while and iconic on it’s own. I tried to make the tag the actual size of a normal tag, so when wearing a shirt or hoodie it looks like you actually have one of these tags on, almost like you forgot to take it off. I have had people comment that they thought it was a real tag when I have been out and about wearing this t-shirt. I also purposefully ran the last name to the very edge as this seems to happen often when filling out one of these tags.

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/456902-hello-my-name-is-thurman-merman?store_id=48571

https://society6.com/product/hello-my-name-is-thurman-merman_t-shirt?sku=s6-4326871p15a4v75a5v18a11v49

Chicken that becomes a hockey goalie. This is art from the fourth book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features farm animals and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

This ended up being one of my favorite imagination character in my whole series. Many times when lining up animals to match with an imagination type, I tried to put unlikely pairs together. When we humans call someone a “chicken” it might mean they are scared of something. A hockey goalie is the exact opposite. You have to be fearless to play a position where you are basically using your body to block a hockey puck being shot right at you. Also this was a chance to pay homage to my favorite NHL hockey team, the St. Louis Blues, as their team colors were what I used for the uniform. Finally, the most personal part of this was the naming of the team and the logo I put on the uniform. The team name is the “Blue Tractors”. I got that name because I wanted to incorporate a farm in some was and it made me think of my father’s farm. HIs old “Blue Tractor”, as we use to call it, popped into my head. And since the team colors were already blue based on the St. Louis Blues, this made the “Blue Tractors” a perfect fit for the team name and logo. The design of said logo was based on that old blue tractor.

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Giraffe that becomes a ninja. This is art from the third book of my children’s picture book “Let’s Just See” series. This book features zoo animals and the overall theme of all my books is to help adults teach young readers or those learning to read about using their imaginations.

This was the tallest and, beside the elephant, the largest animal I illustrated in all my books of the series. Because of a giraffe’s extreme height, it became a challenge in creating an illustration that needed to fit the in the confines of the page. I also needed to keep her in the foreground and stay consistent like I have with all the other animals I had illustrated thus far.  My solution was that I could have her body and lower part of her neck in the foreground and have the neck stretch up out of the page, then have her head and top part of her neck come back into the page closer up to the viewer perspective.  So it actually the confines of the page ended up helping add to the effect of the giraffe’s signature long neck instead of being a pain in my neck. 

http://www.letsjustseebooks.com