Rex’s Journey: Helping Children Understand and Cope with Emotions

Project Overview

Rex’s Journey by Dr. Ambroes Pass-Turner is a social-emotional learning picture book with genuine therapeutic grounding — written by a professional who understands that telling children to “calm down” is far less useful than giving them actual tools. Rex is confused by how quickly and unpredictably his emotions shift — one moment angry, the next sad, never quite sure what he feels or why. Through relatable storytelling and expressive illustrations, he learns that the full range of his emotions is valid, and that coping in healthy ways makes everything easier to navigate.

The illustration challenge was making Rex’s emotional states visually distinct and immediately readable — young readers needed to see themselves in his face and recognise their own experience, which meant subtle, accurate emotional portraiture rather than exaggerated cartoon expression.

Role

The illustration challenge was making Rex’s shifting emotional states visually legible and sympathetic without ever making him seem unstable or hard to understand. Anger, sadness, and confusion all needed distinct visual signatures readers could recognise in themselves, while Rex himself stayed a consistent, relatable presence throughout.

Full illustration across the book covered character design for Rex and his family, expressive illustration across a wide range of children’s emotional states, school and counselling environment illustration, and print-ready file preparation for Mascot Books.

Process

Every project follows this same structured path, so you always know where we are and what comes next. You review and approve at the sketch stage and the line art stage — nothing moves to color until you’re happy. By the time the final spread is rendered, there are no surprises.