Wonder- Design development

I decided to develop my favourite initial idea which is based on the universe- a prominent theme throughout wonder. Via (Auggie's sister) describes her families universe as revolving around Auggie, she calls him their sun. I developed my idea within the constraint of a circle was I wanted it to represent a cycle, like the life cycle. Throughout the book we are constantly reminded of the life cycle and there is a point where the family dog Daisy dies, Daisy is seen as the glue that holds the family together and is Auggie's best friend, when she dies the family are forced to live without her and manage to do so very well. They then get a new puppy which symbolises the start of new beginnings and new hope but also the start of another life cycle. 

To digitalise my idea I scanned in the image and image traced it. The quality of the image wasn't very good and the placement of Auggie's arms and the planets wasn't very even. I decided to re design the image. I wanted the planets to fill up half the circle and Auggie to fill the rest. I chose to have Auggie with his arms out as in the film the opening footage is Auggie jumping on his bed dressed as an astronaut, I like how carefree Auggie is when he's hidden behind the helmet and how much confidence it gives him. I wanted to capture this excitement in the illustration.

I then went into more detail when working on the planet designs, I used the bellow image as a reference when designing as I wanted to make them look realistic but also suitable for children. 

I displayed the planets in order of their distance from the sun Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune. 

To make the cover more interesting/ space like I want to use a coloured background. I started off with lilac as a base as working on a white background was difficult because I couldn't see the white astronaut. I then coloured him in and gave him some more detail to make him seem more cartoon like and less flat. 

I then altered the background to be darker so that it looked like a night sky, I knew I somehow wanted to incorporate stars/ constellations to tie in with the space theme. I didn't want them to be too obvious so tried using a paintbrush effect to look like a splattering of stars. 

I then played around with making this star look like a shooting star to represent luck and hope. 

 Here I played around with many different ideas to make the background look starry and spacey.

I then added a gradient in the centre of the page, I wanted a light to be shining behind Auggie. I think this helps add depth to the cover and centre the design. It has a glow like the sun does and Auggie is seen as the sun.