We’re excited to have bestselling artist Gale Galligan back with us this week to talk more behind the scenes about the recently released THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB: LOGAN LIKES MARY ANNE! One of the many exciting things about this new graphic novel adaptation is that it introduces a fan-favorite character, Jessi Ramsey! Gale gives us an exclusive scoop below:
Fan favorite Jessi Ramsey appears in this latest book, Logan Likes Mary Anne! Can you tell us about your inspiration behind designing her character?
First, I looked to the original source material! In Jessi’s first prose appearance, Mallory is amazed by how beautiful and graceful Jessi is and how she carries herself like a dancer. So I definitely wanted to try and bring across that impression with Jessi’s character design.
Then I put together a mood board. One thing that I like to do when I’m designing characters is to find images of people, like actors, singers, and even friends, who have features that give me the impression I’m looking for—just so I can get outside of my own head a little bit and make sure I’m not only working with the images that happen to already be inside my mental library. For Jessi, my mood board included dancers and performers like Shahadi Wright Joseph, Amaya Joseph, and Nardia Boodoo. I also added outfits, accessories, and patterns that I thought Jessi might enjoy.
After that, I drew lots and lots of sketches, playing with different ideas and thinking about what felt most “Jessi”-like to me, until I found something that I really liked!
Check out a sketch of Jessi below!
BONUS: A sweet scene between Jessi and Mallory from LOGAN LIKES MARY ANNE!
