Socks!

Project Overview

Socks! by Amber Morrell is a delightfully simple picture book built on one of the most universally recognisable dog behaviours — the inexplicable obsession with socks. Lucy the chocolate lab is a dog who loves life: exploring, playing, spending time with her family. But when the question is what she loves most, the answer is always, enthusiastically, socks. Amber Morrell writes with an easy affection that makes the whole book feel like a family story someone actually lived, and the comedy comes from recognition rather than invention.

The illustration challenge was making Lucy’s sock obsession visually funny across every spread without the joke running out — each new sock encounter needed its own comic energy, and Lucy’s expressions throughout needed to be so specific and genuine that readers who have never owned a dog could still completely understand her.

Role

The illustration challenge was making Lucy’s sock obsession visually funny across every spread without the joke running out. Each new sock encounter needed its own comic energy, and Lucy’s expressions throughout had to be specific and genuine enough that readers who’ve never owned a dog could still completely understand her.

Full illustration across the book covered character design for Lucy and her family, expressive dog character design across comedic scenarios, 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.