Oodles of Poodles

Project Overview

Oodles of Poodles by Tami Tolbert and Melissa Alford is a warmly funny picture book about one of childhood’s most earnest campaigns: convincing your parents you’re ready for a pet. Avy’s love for poodles is absolute, but her parents aren’t convinced she can handle the responsibility. When friends and family begin gifting her stuffed poodles in response to her obvious devotion, Avy turns the situation into an opportunity — using her collection to practise and demonstrate the care and commitment a real dog would need. Tolbert and Alford keep the story light and sweet, letting Avy’s determination and the growing oodles of stuffed poodles carry most of the comedy.

The illustration challenge was making a growing collection of stuffed animals progressively funnier without losing sight of Avy herself — the poodles needed to accumulate visually in a way that built to genuine delight, while Avy’s personality and purpose remained the emotional anchor of every page.

Role

The illustration challenge was making a growing collection of stuffed animals progressively funnier without losing sight of Avy herself. The poodles needed to accumulate visually in a way that built to genuine delight, while Avy’s personality and purpose remained the emotional anchor of every page.

Full illustration across the book covered character design for Avy and her ever-growing poodle collection, visual escalation of the stuffed poodle collection across spreads, warm domestic environment illustration, and print-ready file preparation.

Character Design

Before a single page is illustrated, I develop the main characters in full — defining their proportions, expressions, and personality. This is the foundation that keeps your characters recognizable and consistent across every scene, every lighting condition, and every emotional moment in the project.

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.