Bowers pitches newest book...

Knuckleball Ned cover 

This pitch won’t cross the plate until next year but my newest title, Knuckleball Ned by R.A. Dickey will be published in 2014 (Dial).

R. A. Dickey is a starting pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays. In 2012, he became the first knuckleball pitcher to win the Cy Young Award. This was a fun book to work on, R.A. Dickey is a very decent guy (very good with a baseball and a story) so this should be a home run, early next year. I can't wait!

I’m only showing a few images, now… more to come in early 2014.

Knuckleball Ned character sketches

This is where we started. First, the main characters in the story were developed as pencil sketches. 

Then I plug them into the story.  The final artwork was created with acrylic paint (washes) and a little air-brush work on the character's heads to get that baseball roundness.

So, even though R.A. didn't make the playoffs, this year...he's got a real winner hitting the shelves, early next year!