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Here's the final to a sketch post and a preliminary post below. I have been struggling with this one for some reason. I'm not liking it as much as I want to. I felt like I was getting too close to it so I figured I would just post it and move on. There are parts to it I really like but can't figure out what it is that's bothering me. If anyone sees it, don't be shy about offering some criticism.
9 comments:
perhaps to keep the little boy with the bicycle at the same place, and to clear up the face of the character, that which is in the medium. And for the road to put a dark gray at the place of the black...
Hi Jim,
Your work has so much energy adn this is bueatiful, as always. What I notice when I look at this for a while is my eye keeps getting drawn away from the foreground to the background, specially the top left - probably a combination of the warm colours and patttern in the area. Maybe cooling the colours in this area would shift emphasis back the the figures and action?
This is a really excellent illustration, I like it a lot. My only suggestion would be that the boy on the bicycle looks pasted onto the ilustration, like he's not quite part of it, because of the halo around him. I know you're doing that to keep his outline against the black road, maybe if it were more pronounced even? I dunno. The same with the rain falling onto his head, where it stops before reaching his head. All the energy of this scene is definitely going to that upper left corner. I realllly dig this illustration though.
As good as it is now, the brown, bigger face is what is damaging the whoel comp If I dare say not offending you. At least I woudl like it better. It would look cleaner and finished w/o it. What do you think???
Your black and white seems a bit "grittier" which seems to go with the mood of this piece. Dare I say it is over worked? I love the image, but think maybe some color washes over all the great ink marks might work better? The back ground color and painting really work, just keep the freshness of your original and you'll have a great illo!
Morning,
Love your work! Had a look at the original black and white sketch vs the colour version and thought that perhaps what isn't working is the push and pull - compositionally - that the colour creates. In the black and white version the house and trees to the left of the bicycle boy echo the shape of the road and there's a kind of dark ring to the left of the image that rounds it off. In the colour version there's a lot of tension, a lot of pushing and pulling in different directions - is the focus the sun, the pink house, the blue mouthed boy, the green grass? And within that the bicycle boy gets lost. I'd fix it by extending left and bringing some of the green of the grass up on that side, possibly creating the beginings of another curved hill arching to the right.
The background's crooked.
Thanks guys. You gave me lots of fresh eyes. I like a lot of the suggestions and appreciate your straightforward responses. Sometimes I think we tend to gush for the sake of gushing and while that may build our egos, it doesn't do much to stretch us. Now I need the motivation to go back and do something with this when all I want to do is go forward.
I really like this - if you are still looking for reactions to it, I do think it could be strengthened by cooling off the right side (or some other location just to ease up on the overall warmness) and rearranging the figures a bit so they are more in the boy's way - currently it looks like he is past them so they aren't so threatening anymore
(I like jeannette's comment too)
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