About two years ago I met the author of this series, Kevin Manly. He has such a gently spirit and love for fun that comes through in his illustration and stories!

He had written and illutrated his first book on paper, and was struggling to figure out how he could convert it to digital graphic that was suitable for publishing. It was great working with Kevin because he was open to any options that would get him the right results to design his book. But he was also willing to tolerate all of my questions as I dug into his personal style of creating and even his personality a little bit to find out what tools would work best for him.

Kevin has a strong technical mind, so we worked with Adobe illustrator and he started converting his art to print. It was super satisfyling to see the progress he would make between training sessions. Clearly Kevin has a passion for this project and for his illustrations, and for creating something that children love and enjoy!

He took the skills I taught him and after about 6 months of working in the evenings, outside of his full-time job,  Kevin published book one and launched his side-hustle as a published author! Since then, he has published book two, and is about to publish book three in the series in early 2026.

While I’ve helped answer his publishing questions, and a lot of technical training in Adobe Illustrator along the way, this series is completely his project. I’ve just been excited to watch it come to life, answer questions along the way, and give some creative feedback.

Lilly Bug and Friends is simply a beautiful, fun book series for children!