How did Finch start?

The first Finch came to me in a dream. I drew him the way I remembered him: a small yellow chick standing on bits of broken shell, with the whole egg still over his head. Next to him I wrote the idea the book would grow from: “A bird that refused to leave the egg.”

Sketch of D.G. Alonso asleep in bed, dreaming of a yellow chick with a speckled egg over its head. Handwritten notes read: Todo empezó con un sueño, It all started with a dream, and Finch, a bird that refused to leave the egg
“Todo empezó con un sueño.” It all started with a dream.

Four steps, from sketch to character

From there, I kept redrawing Finch. My design sheet shows four stages:

  1. Original. The chick from the dream: yellow, round, the egg covering his head.
  2. Conceptual. He becomes a bird, not a chick: longer legs, a speckled shell that’s cracked open at the bottom, and a feathered body.
  3. Standard. The shape that works on every page — a rounder body and simple lines, drawn with and without the shell.
  4. Dynamic. Finch in action: moving, dancing, full of personality.
Finch Character Design Evolution: four numbered sketches on blue, labeled Original, Conceptual, Standard and Dynamic
Finch’s design evolution: original, conceptual, standard, dynamic.

Why is Finch blue?

Once the shape was ready, the color came next. I picked complementary colors, opposite each other on the color wheel. Finch, the main character, is blue. The other characters and the whole forest are oranges and yellows.

That’s why your eye always finds Finch on the page, even when he’s tiny and hiding under a tree.

Color palette sheet: a color wheel marked complementary, with blue labeled main character (Finch) and orange labeled other characters plus environment, next to a dancing Finch and a small blue Finch in an orange forest, above a strip of black, blue, brown, orange and yellow swatches
Blue for Finch, oranges and yellows for everything else.

Finch also has a real-life cousin: the blue finch, a small blue bird with a yellow beak that lives in Brazil and northeastern Bolivia.

The Finch in the book

The final Finch: a blue bird with a speckled eggshell over his head
The final design
And finally, Finch on the move

See what came after in Finishing The Bird in the Egg, or watch the story Finch lives in by getting the book on Amazon.

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