First of all, can I just say that as a designer, I think one of the most difficult and time-consuming processes is deciding what color(s) would work best for your design. In this case, I wanted colors that would harmonize and tile across beautifully without offending the eyes. I spent more time changing colors than I did with the actual illustration…

As always, when I design something initially, it always starts off black-and-white. I believe that any design, logo, mascot, illustration, or whatever should translate well colorless for it be more versatile. Once everything looks good, then the color comes into play.

I’ve changed the color scheme 3 times throughout the duration of this project. I wanted a color scheme that was “natural” and soothing to the eyes. The first one (top-right)  felt too artificial and when tiled across, the hummingbird looked more insect-like than avian since that purple leans towards a brown. Can you imagine tiling that across a shower curtain? It would look like a bunch of roaches stacked up!

Playing around with different layer effects, I discovered the second color scheme (bottom-left) and I loved how “soft” it looked. However, with the blue being so light, it was hard to make out the bird from a distance or whenever it was scaled down. I needed a darker color for the hummingbird to really stand out.

And finally, after a little more color fidgeting, I arrived to my final color scheme (bottom-right). I felt that the grass green, the lavender, and the fading blues really screamed “nature” and had an ideal balance in color and contrast.

The final portion of this project is to apply it to at least 3 objects in a room using Photoshop. Here is my before and after result.