Dreaming up book covers

So I think I came up with what my main characters for this first book will look like, at least as close as my sketching/drawing capabilities can take them.  So, because I'm loving what the characters look like, I've put together a book cover for the first title of the Terry Tarantula series:

Introducing:

I'm still writing the book, chapter 4 is almost finished.  My goal is to finish the first draft of this book by May 1st and test it on my children and their friends.  Any of my adult friends who would like to proof read for me, let me know.  Just shoot me an email or message me through facebook.

Terry Tarantula gets going

When I write, it seems I write in spurts. Like I go all out and write for days and then take days off. I don't know what motivates me to write as I do, other than when I finish reading a book, my fingers go to the keyboard.

My oldest son isn't the biggest fan of reading, and sadly, I know how that feels. I pretty much didn't touch a book after the 3rd grade, and I can see him following in my footsteps. But, I hope to prevent that.

A couple nights ago, the hubby and I sat him down and asked him if he could pick anything in the world to read about what would it be. He said spiders, specifically tarantulas.

Ew.

I didn't really want a whole bunch of realistic spider books sitting around the house so I came up with an idea.

Terry Tarantula, the greatest detective around!

I asked my son if he thought reading about a tarantula that solved crimes and mysteries would be fun. He had no idea what a mystery was. Insert slightly sarcastic laugh here.  I started brainstorming that night about who Terry Tarantula was and what crimes/mysteries he would solve.  Who would he work with?  What would he look like?  How many words and chapters should a 2nd-4th grade reading level book have (approximately 10,000-12,000 and roughly 10-12 chapters).

The next day, when picking up carpool kids from school, I ran some ideas by them.  Should his name be Terry or Teddy?  The consensus was Terry, interesting.  What about his crime-solving companion?  What or who should the villain be?  Research for writing a book for kids is kinda fun!

So then I got home and sketched up an idea for what I imagined Terry to look like, of course what I imagined wasn't exactly what he came out looking like - I still need help with that!  Anyway, after showing my version of Terry to my son and his friends, they were both very curious to know what the villain looked like.  I haven't started my sketch of him yet...

So now, chapter 1 is complete and chapter 2 is almost finished.  The story is moving along and I can't wait to finish it and have my son and his friends read it.  I'm hoping to include some rough illustrations on random pages to help with their imaginations, but I'll need help with those too I think.

Terry Tarantula needs his picture taken

Calling all my artistic friends - I need someone to create an iconic looking detective tarantula. His name is Terry and he's a character my oldest and I have created for a potential young reader book series. I would like to use the image on the blog and then potentially have illustrations (black and white) on random pages of the future book...any takers?? (the current image of Terry I did on photoshop and is just not doing it for me - though I really like the idea of him holding a magnifying glass, pen and notebook).