Wee Puffling - colours

I thought I'd make a little post about the colours used in Wee Puffling. 

Firstly, I have to admit that pufflings are not purple. They're grey and black and white like this.

From my sketchbook

And they don't have the lovely colourful beaks the older puffins have, a look I much prefer. 

I thought kids would identify the traditional puffin colours easier and though our main character is often alone (searching for the other birds) I wanted to make sure that he stood out when all the puffins were together. 

While I'm writing I do all my rough drawings without colour, although I do mark in the sea. So I don't really worry too much about character design or colours at this point.

a rough page

But as the story got closer to being done I started to do some colour tests to find Wee Puffling's feather colour.

I knew the backgrounds were going to be bright like in Wee Unicorn so whatever colour I picked had to stand out against those colours and also sit well with the other puffins. As I began working on the final artwork I still hadn't settled on a feather colour so I would do tests against the finished backgrounds and send them to my art director to see what she thought.

Some variations I sent to my art director, Katie.

This is when I was trying a more traditional puffin look. I was also experimenting with beak colours and outline thickness. I tried painted feather details but they weren't as subtle as the pencil drawn ones.

I'd settled on the puffin group having this dark blue, almost black, feather colour and so I thought a lighter grey might work for Wee Puffling but it was too dull.

As a little last minute experiment I switched to a lilac. Something that felt quite grey but still young and bright. I was worried it might feel too faint and sent this purple too...

And this was the colour the art director and I liked best. It's so helpful to have a second opinion. 

The background colours are as limited as Wee Unicorn but tonally different. And where Wee Unicorn has its darkest colour be a navy blue, Wee Puffling has a dark purple to tie in with the feather colour.

This is the rough of the first double spread when all puffins are together.

Compositionally I've tried to draw focus to my main character as best I can by giving him more height and space around him. But as you can see having his own dedicated colour helps to pick him out too. Nothing else in the book is the same colour as Wee Puffling so that every time we look for him we find him easily.

Wee Puffling is available to buy now. 

Or you can borrow it from your local library.