Whilst looking through my print outs of the whole book, and also my recent visit to Waterstones I felt as though my front cover needed more to it, it also needed to appeal to both boys and girls. I felt it was maybe more aimed at girls, it was very pretty with flowers and the fairy. I wanted to add Rory to the front cover as he was the main character and who the book was about.
I set about thinking of how to keep Flora as she was in the cover, but add Rory and also maybe Terrence too!
I also had a look at the character design of Rory again, after seeing the illustrations in Waterstones, I felt mine were still not quite right, they still lacked some finesse and solidness to them. I worked on another design for Rory, I made him a bit fuller and less of a cartoon style of boy. I felt this would work better with my style of painting, and work better with the flowers and nature elements. I kept his body very similar, but changed his features slightly, I ‘m hoping he doesn’t look too old again?
I think this composition could be good for the front cover, I would then add in all the animals, insects and flowers etc around the three characters to make the illustration more rounded and full. I think this would be a fairly easy change, and the back cover could stay the same, but I think this is more in keeping with Picture books in general and also my style.
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