Welcome to another installment of how the illustrator and I developed The Legend of Lop-eared Larry. 

The most fun part of designing the book was choosing the color palette. Brittany David used Pinterest to find images for inspiration and to find a "model" for the main character, Larry. Then she put together 3 color palettes for me to choose from. It was such a delight to open her email and see the lovely colors! 

This is an excerpt from Brittany's color study email so you can get an idea of how she approached adding color to the illustrations: "Here are my color studies for the rest of the illustrations, these are just the base colors I would use. I also included a few images of Lop rabbits that I referenced when picking colors for Larry. Please let me know what you think. I tried to stick to Easter-ish palettes and then try to add some more muted tones."  

What I looked for in the colors was would the cover be attention-getting? Do the colors reflect the time of year, spring? Do the characters stand out against the backgrounds? Will the colors still be strong after using a quick printer?

I ended up mixing and matching a bit to get the character colors and background colors working. Brittany worked digitally so it was easy for her to change them. You'll have to see how the colors turned out in the printed book. I am pleased!

These are the 3 color palettes. Which one would you choose?

The Legend of Lop-eared Larry was officially released January 2, 2022. Get it via Amazon's pre-order. Thanks as always for your support. Can’t wait for you to read it! Feel free to share this post.