I loved illustrating Dieses Buch ist LEER (This Book is EMPTY) by Daniel Fehr, published on October 26, 2022, by Penguin Junior. It is available in German.
The premise involves twelve hamsters hiding in what initially appears to be an empty book. However, it soon becomes clear that there is something else lurking within its pages.
Initially, I planned to make puppets that could be posed differently for each scene, but ultimately, every hamster body was newly crafted, reusing the heads to preserve character likeness. This approach enhanced the storytelling by allowing for unique poses and gestures that would not have been possible with puppets.
What I enjoyed most about this brief was the opportunity to create my own narrative alongside the authors, with the hamsters doing their own thing, oblivious to the text. As a result, the book features many noisy, playful hamsters drawing attention to themselves. I won’t reveal who they are hiding from inside the book—that’s for you to discover by reading it!
If you’d like to buy Dieses Buch ist LEER, you can find it here.