I imagine Tobias being blonde. Not dark haired. I don't see him looking as similar to Jake as some covers make him out to be.
I see your point. But I think it's pretty appropriate that Tobias looks so much like Jake, since I got the impression that Tobias aspired to be like Jake--at least before his hawkization. It seemed realistic that Tobias would get a "cool hair cut" like Jake's. Who knows, maybe he went all stalker on Jake and purposely dyed his hair brown to look more like him xD Tis a nice in-verse way to explain why his cover models were dark haired.
Also I picture Ax with a much longer tail than the one in book 8. In my opinion, the Visser cover seems to be the only one showing an Andalite tail as long as I imagine it would be. Even Elfangors was like barely long enough to be effective.
I think that had to do with the artist. The one in charge of the 1-54 books and the guy who did the Chronicles one had different styles and skills--I remember reading that somewhere. But if Elfangor's tail seemed short, despite the fact that the Chronicles' Andalites were the best looking, then maybe Elfangor's gene pool just sucks, and their whole family is genetically inferior to other Andalites
I picture the Animorphs all more or less how they're depicted on the covers--since I just have the WORST imagination. I prefer dark haired Tobias to blond--especially the Pretender and the Illusion. That model had the "troubled but dreamy look" Tobias is said to have.
The Jake model, in my opinion, was totally Jake! He had this kind of squinty look to him, like the sun was always in his eyes, but he pulled of the regular kid-turned leader look well. I genuinely believed that this kid had the weight of the world on his shoulders--unlike the relaunch model.
I prefer short haired Marco. End of story.
I liked the Cassie model. Thought she had that cute-but-didn't-know-she-was-cute look, which is how Cassie's character is in the books.
The way Rachel is described means, to me, pretty much any pretty blonde girl could be her. It's unfortunate.
Despite my wanting to picture David as what Tobias started to look like in book 49, I can't help but picture him as this big, stocky guy. I don't know why.