I was recently asked by the wonderful marketing team at Random House Graphics to create some full color illustrations to help promote book 2 of the Pacey Packer Unicorn Tracker series, Horn Slayer. (Release date: June 1, 2021) This was quite a challenge for me since I’m used to illustrating in shades of purple for the interior of the book. I knew I wanted the colors to be bright and fun, so I went with a pink and seafoam combo for the mushrooms above.

 This next illustration is actually from Book 1, when Arkane, the alpha unicorn, leads Pacey into his statue gallery. One of the main things about Arkane is his contrast. He looks beautiful and fancy, but he’s actually quite cruel. I wanted the same kind of contrast for the gallery. I wanted this soft, clean pink to work against the action that was going to take place later in this scene.

For this illustration – (below) from Book 1 – I pulled heavily from Pacey’s signature color, purple. I asked myself, “What can look just odd enough to look like it’s from a magical unicorn world, without changing everything?” So I kept green grass – although I made it a little brighter and more yellow – and I balanced it with purple mountainside, trees, and shrubs.

Honestly, one of the most challenging things was just working with a full color rainbow. In the book, since everything is purple, the rainbows are purple too. I’m used to a limited color palette, so bringing in ALL the colors was a little overwhelming – but still a lot of fun!