Introducing... Axolotl-Ella!

What happens when you put Cinderella and an axolotl together?

Hello! It’s me! I’m back with another book that I illustrated. I took a break from illustrating other people’s books and told myself I wouldn’t take on a book unless I really, really, really liked the manuscript.

Enter, Axolotl-Ella! Written by the brilliant Kate Messner, this manuscript arrived into my inbox with a splash (hah!). I was unsure if I should take it on at first and gave myself a week or so to mull over it. However, in that week, I found myself drawing silly axolotls over and over…

Okay Adam actually drew these ones haha

From there, I thought to myself, “Screw it! Let’s just try painting a spread and see how it feels.” Ever since I started making books nine years ago, I’ve been wanting to make a book out of ink and watercolor. But with each book that I worked on, none of them felt like the right fit… until this one! I decided to test out inking with a Sailor Fude fountain pen and coloring with watercolor for the sample illustration and it came out perfect. I was in love and decided that I would take on this project!

Sample illustration I made & sent over

Since this story was a riff on a fairytale, I collected a lot of reference from old fairy tale books as inspiration. Many of these use ink drawings and so the medium finally felt right for once.

This is unrelated but look at this funny page I found:

After accepting the book, I did my usual deep dive into the subject which included a lot of videos about axolotls and their habitat:

Part of my reference board

While doing my research, I came to learn that axolotls are indigenous to Mexico, particularly the lakes of Xochimilco and Chalco. When I was first designing Axolotl-Ella I had dressed her in a classic European fairy tale dress reminiscent of the Cinderella she was referencing. However as I continued to work on the dummy, I suddenly felt like this was the wrong take on her design. If axolotls are found in the lakes of Mexico, why was Axolotl-Ella European? Wouldn’t it make more sense if she was Mexican?

And so I decided to pivot and did more research into traditional and modern Mexican attire. In the end, I decided to dress Axolotl-Ella primarily in a huipil, a traditional embroidered tunic, which she mostly wears outside of transformation scenes. During her ballroom scenes, she’s dressed in a bright dress that is colored Mexican pink, a hot pink that is seen all throughout Mexican culture. The prince himself is dressed in an outfit inspired by Mexican designer Benito Santos’ menswear collection with his red neckbow, cape and black boots. They’re all subtle additions since the art is so simple, but I hope the intention shines through.

Some clothing inspiration

After I had finished the interiors, I began to work on the cover! Here are all the cover variations I submitted:

From there, we went with the top left choice! We removed the band on the left as well as added a gradient to the background. I tried out two different color variations:

And ultimately we went with the yellow/blue background! Here’s the final cover, ONCE AGAIN:

Wahoo! Axolotl-Ella hits shelves June 2nd 2026. You can preorder this book wherever books are sold. You can find some handy links for preordering from different sites below:

And as a treat for making it through all of this, here are some sneak peeks of a couple of my favorite pages of the book:

I just LOVE to do a ballroom scene!

And for a fun comparison, here’s what the early sample I did looks like next to the final version that made it into the book:

I really liked the composition of the sample, but adjusted the colors of the floor tiles so the characters would be more visible. I also bumped up the saturation of the main characters so your eyes are drawn to them immediately.

A big thank you to my agent Rebecca, editor Ginee Seo, designer Monica Cheng, as well as Kelly Booth, Adah Li and the rest of the team over at Ten Speed Young Readers for making this happen!

Anyways, that’s all for now.

Thanks for reading, I hope you like this book.