Hunter Hound's Lost & Found by Shelby Mander

Picture book Illustration-2025

Shelby Mander is an Elementary Science teacher in Central Florida, US. She loves bringing the magic of the natural world into her classroom.
Shelby creates beautiful stories based on animal characters to help her own students connect with their feelings and emotions.

This time, Shelby wrote a beautiful and fun story about a quest that a little dog goes on to find his missing best friend.

The Challenge

Continue the style and visual richness from her previous project, “Petunia the Piccolo Player.”

Convey Hunter’s emotional journey throughout the book: frustration, sadness, surprise, and ultimately erupting into happiness at the story's conclusion.

The Solution

As Shelby was already a returning client, our workflow was even smoother. However, this time the story featured a larger cast of characters who drive the story forward together with Hunter. The solution was to design friendly, relatable, and funny animal characters that fit seamlessly into his world.

The Process

In "Hunter the Hound," we combined more textured backgrounds and leaned into color to create the emotional rhythm of the story. I enjoy drawing animals immensely, so the concept and sketch stages were incredibly fun and satisfying.
We followed a similar color palette to the previous book, although we utilized white backgrounds more frequently this time around.