Taking your crit and applying it, the story grew. :D Dunno if this makes any more sense visually, but am I on to something? Surprisingly I'm still interested in this piece after all of the perspective work and reworking. Normally it grows stiff and I never finish it. :P
Hey everyone! Sorry (I say that a lot don't I), on another track of mind and got lost. :/ All of the work just looks so freakin' fantastic. What's awesome is you can see progress in your works and technique. I truly hope that somewhere in there the critiques have helped improve your skills as well.
I can finally say that I am now devoting 100% of my work time to childrens' books and building my portfolio. It's awesome and kinda scary all at the same time. I have realized how much isn't in my portfolio. Technique, check, color, check, detail, check. But I lack in interaction, interesting perspectives, and play. Most of my work is posed or better suited for licensing.
With that I took this week's word from IF and made it a challenge. I started with half of the size above. I knew full well the perspective was off and it wasn't interesting enough. I posted it on the scbwi forum but after two days no response for critique. After that I reworked it today and this is what I came up with (above). The only thing I see now to change is where the two skaters' legs meet making a "v". It's driving me nuts! But do you see anything else? Do I need to jazz it up more? Something missing?
Thanks everyone for being so productive!
6 comments:
It's impossible to get a good critique on the SCBWI site. All they say is "great job, love the colors, what personality." There is never any constructive criticism.
I like the idea here, but my main comment is that the ice seems to be broken there and that's why the kid can see the fish. Now I know that the ice is supposed to be clear and you are seeing the fish through the ice. Maybe this will be shown better once in color, but it's going to be a real challenge to convey that. Good luck, I hope you post the finished version. I'm trying to think how I would show this challenging scene, and it's about the same as yours.
Thanks Steve,
what if I made the ice line thinner? Do you think that might help not making it such a large part of the divide?
It doesn't register as a sheet of ice and the girl is looking through...I think it might be the wave of the ice. If it was straight across, maybe that would convey the flatness and the fact that you're seeing straight through...Besides that, is it possible to a reflection or a show a fish that crosses under the ice, so you can see him in the water, but also you can still sort of see him through the ice.
But mostly I think the straight across ice would work best.
I'm really stuck on this one....
I was thinking about the idea and how to show this while I was making dinner and I really don't know how i would show this clearly. Isaac has sort of the same idea as me, but you really can't see through ice, and if you can you shouldn't be on it. Thick frozen ice isn't transparent. It's really reflective and you see the bubbles but then it freezes white. Like the middle of ice cubes.
Again, good luck.
Wow, you actually thought about it away from the computer Steve, awww, I feel so special right now. Thanks! :) You made an awesome point tho...so I'm glad you thought about it.
Sooo with that point I tried to make more sense out of it. Now my question is, does it look like he's frustrated with her or the scepter being frozen in the ice?
Thanks guys for your feedback, still nothing from the scbwi forums. :( That's unfortunate.
I've voiced my opinion of how bad the SCBWI forums are very loudly. Until they make changes to make it easier to post images to the site I refuse to go on it anymore.
That aside, this version is much better. I could get picky about the ice being very thin but I think most viewers wouldn't care too much about that. The new image has a story to it while the image below seemed more like and illustration for a science book about life under frozen ponds.
My big criticism now is that you page is divide in half with horizontal lines and then divided into a a quarter with the vertical lines and that makes these boxes on your page. Almost like comic panels. Maybe the ice should freeze more unevenly...You would have the water line and then the ice below would have a stalagtite sort of look and the ice could grow around the scepter. I'll post what I mean in a bit.
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