Chowder Rules! ...the characters and the color palette
Chowder Rules!, written by Anna Crowley Redding, is based on real events that happened in 1939, so when I turned my attention to figuring out what the characters in the book would look like, I had to do my homework. I was very fortunate that Anna had done so much research herself when she was writing the story, and shared many newspaper clippings with me about the event. And I was even more fortunate that there were photos with some of them…I wanted to make sure the characters in the book showed some resemblance to the real people. The photos we found served as great inspiration for not only the main characters of Sleeper and Tully, but for the judges of the cook-off and also for some of the scenes in the book.
1. The Journal Times (Racine, Wisconsin) 1/31/1939 2. The Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine) 3/4/1939 3. The Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine) 3/4/1939 4. The Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine) 3/4/1939. 5. Pottstown Mercury (Pottstown, Pennsylvania) 3/7/1939 6. photo of Cleveland Sleeper Jr. from ancestory.com
I also researched 1930’s fashion for men, women, and children, 1930’s architecture (and earlier, for depicting Sleeper’s childhood home). And 1930’s radios, microphones, and more!
With all these reference images, I got to work and started working out what are characters would look like.
Remember how I said I researched what things looked like in the 1930’s? I had some real life inspiration in my own home! My husband has an old typewriter from the 1920’s that used to belong to his grandfather, and I used it as a model for Sleeper’s own typewriter. (And I used my husband as a hand model. Thanks James!)
For the color palette of the book I was quick to decide that I wanted it based off the ingredients of the two rival clam chowders. All of that food plays a big part of the story. I tend to gravitate towards more dusty colors, and this time was no exception. After a lot of thought and working-things-out, I landed with this color palette here, shown with my final character studies for the two main characters.
And here’s what those ingredients looks like, in the endpapers of the book.
Next time I’ll talk about the layout of the book, working it into tighter pencil sketches, and then the final art itself.