How a Mother-Daughter Team Came To Create Children’s Books~by Darlene Panzera

There were several factors leading to the creation of the Riki and J.R. Horse Tales books, but the first notion of creating a children’s book series based on our two horses began back in 2013. My daughter, Samantha, was in college and her homework for her Adobe Illustrator Class was to take a real-life animal and digitally draw it as a cartoon. Samantha chose to draw our two horses, Riki and J.R. When Samantha showed me the finished drawings on her computer, and I saw how adorable the cartoon horses looked, as an author I just knew that we needed to create a story to go along with them.

First, I needed to do some research. I have written many adult fiction books but writing and designing the layout of a children’s picture book is quite different. We studied other children’s books similar to our own style and used them as a guideline. Samantha and I brainstormed back and forth on possible ideas that we could use. We had so much fun, we outlined stories for several books based on our horses and decided to turn it into a series.

Our idea for book one in the series Riki and J.R.: The Big Bad Scary Mud Puddle was derived from our Morgan horse Riki, who was absolutely terrified of mud puddles, while our younger Paint horse J.R. loved splashing through knee deep mud puddles on the trail. The story is mostly made up from our imaginations, told from the horses’ point of view. But we liked taking some real-life elements and creating our own fictional world. 

Since my previous adult novels at this point had only been traditionally published, I got to learn how to self-publish for the first time with Riki and J.R.: The Big Bad Scary Mud Puddle. Using more online research and Samantha’s multi-media tech skills, we uploaded the book to Amazon and Barnes and Noble as an ebook. However, finding a company that could give us print copies with the sizing we wanted was a challenge. We tried several different options before eventually switching to Ingram Spark’s Lightning Source to fulfill our Print on Demand Paperback version of our book and added a Hardcover version.

Samantha used Adobe Illustrator for the initial creation of the cartoon horses but later on in the production process she brought the Smart Object Vectorized Files of the horses into Adobe Photoshop where she was able to add more of the embellishing touches to the graphics. In Adobe Photoshop, Samantha used a Wacom drawing tablet and was able to use different paintbrushes, and textures in the computer to paint the grass, trees, clouds, and other backgrounds. With hair strand photoshop brushes Samantha was able to draw the horses’ manes flowing in the wind. With all the different layers, brushes, and effects Adobe Photoshop has to offer she was able to create more advanced digital paintings than what could be achieved just by sticking with only Adobe Illustrator. Samantha used a lot of different lighting and digital painting techniques in photoshop that she learned after taking a specialized clinic taught by one of the designers behind the World of Warcraft Posters and video game artwork. 

Riki and J.R.: The Big Bad Scary Mud Puddle took about 3 years to create since Samantha was still nailing down the process and learned a lot of new techniques along the way. 

Book two, Riki and J.R.: The 1/2 Eaten Apple Tree came together much more quickly. Samantha was able to create all the graphics for the 32-page story and format the book for both ePub and Print within two months. 

We currently have several more stories with Riki and J.R. planned, including a Christmas special that we are hoping to release in 2020.

We also developed a website with photos of the real Riki and J.R., an online store to buy Riki and J.R. merchandise, and plan to have downloads and fun things for kids to see and do that pertain to the series. 

Visit the Riki and J.R. website here

Darlene Panzera is a multi-published author of books that "inspire people to laugh, value relationships, and pursue their dreams." Her career launched with THE BET, a sweet contemporary romance included in bestselling author Debbie Macomber's FAMILY AFFAIR. Darlene is a member of RWA and the Northwest Christian Writers Association. She loves coaching new writers, camping and hiking with her family, feeding her horses carrots, and writing stories for children of all ages with her daughter, Samantha. 

Visit Darlene's Website

Samantha Panzera graduated from Olympic College in Bremerton, Washington with an Associate in Technical Arts, Digital Media Arts and Certificates in Photography and Photoshop. She loves spending time with her horses and often takes off on trail rides in the woods behind the local stable. When not at the barn she loves hiking mountains, backpacking far out into the wilderness, snowboarding, kayaking, and working on the latest blog post for her travel blog Adventure Hike Travel and creating children’s books.