For this project, I decided to write a children’s story about a little rabbit named Daisy. The book focuses on her as she goes through a wild journey in order to try and get a crazy hat. Along the way she runs into some of the locals who try and help her get her hat. I decided that the whole story would rhyme because I remember as a child loving poetry books like this. The next step for me was to figure out a style and a color palette and begin to design all the characters. I decided to assign each of the characters a color and base their designs around that color. Once I had settled on characters and was happy with their designs, I then started on thumbnails for each of the illustrations. A majority of the time spent on this project was dedicated just to creating the illustrations. Rather than doing the illustrations digitally, which would have been quicker, I decided I wanted them to feel softer and more child-friendly, ultimately deciding to illustrate by hand and color with watercolors. Finally, I edited all of the drawings and designed the book in InDesign. I found a handwritten font which I felt complimented the hand-drawn illustrations. Overall, this has been an exhausting exercise in illustrating and has been a great opportunity for me to create something on a professional level, by myself, from start to finish.
