SEE YOU LATER ALLIGATOR

'See You Later Alligator' is written by Rina A. Foti, and published by Koala Books.

 This is the second of three books I've now done for Koala. Often, where I find appeal in a story is not always in the story itself, but usually the setting and/or characters. This story is set in a swamp, and I'd never done a book with a swamp setting, so that was enough to spark my interest. It's that simple (and somewhat shallow I know!). There was discussion at the start to change the setting of this story to Africa with African animals, but I'd already done Africa with Who Flung Dung? and Cheeky Charlie, so I pushed to keep it in a swamp. Now that I've done a swamp book, I'm less inclined to do another one. If I do, it has to be far different from this one.

Here's some early concept sketches of alligator...

And the supporting cast...

Originally the stork character was a Goose. I liked the Frog, Duck, and Turtle characters, because they were all very different visually, but a Goose felt too similar to the Duck. We threw some alternatives about, and we'd settled on a Flamingo for a little while...

I liked the long legs, because they'd bring a distinct characteristic to the swamp monster at the end, but I felt the Flamingo stood out (no pun) too much. I suggested a Stork, and that was settled.

I start my finished pictures by first working out the palette of each character...

I agonised over this Alligator's colour. I really didn't want to do a green Alligator, as every single cartoon Alligator is green in colour, and I thought it was painfully unoriginal to make him green. But no matter what I tried, nothing else seemed to work except green. Now, I'm pretty happy with it. It's grown on me, I can't see him any other way. As compensation I made sure I was slightly more adventurous with Turtle...

I put away the inks and went full acrylic with this book. I added finishing touches with Gouache.

 The above is a test picture. I did this back last September when I was invited to draw at a Librarian's Conference with a few other illustrators. I got a free feed that day! And here's how it appears in the book:

The eventual colour palette is dominated by greens — I referenced the Everglades of Florida mostly, which are rich in greens.

'See You Later Alligator' is out this year...