The Nutrition Puzzle
A cover illustration for a puzzle-themed middle-grade book about nutrition.
Progress
Before I made my thumbnails, I went ahead and made a giant moodboard to look at the trends of middle-grade books. I noticed that the title is usually up on the picture plane and either has an easy focal point. Colors are saturated and the typography is fun with varied widths.
When thumbnailing, I wanted to have fun with drawing food! I focused on placement and visual metaphors, though most of the thumbnails ended up a little too magazine/cookbook-like rather than a fun book about nutrition. I did initial thumbnails and cleaner renders of my favorites.
I actually had quite a bit of trouble with the color palette. When value relationships are at play, such as to get a sense of depth, I use grisaille and dump a bunch of colors on top so I can get the full value scale without having to pick out individual colors.
Some value studies I did to decide coloring! I also have some alternate covers based on feedback from class, but we ultimately decided on my original composition.
A lot of my color comps look the same- I wanted a bright, healthy feel, so I went for yellow and blue-greens. We ended up choosing the bottom-left.
Some WIP images! Rendering this was a lot of fun.
Finished Pieces + Mockup!
