Looking for feedback on the poses for a Children's book illustration

bdonoho · May 2016

The coloring isn't finished by half, but I keep looking at the two characters below the big guy and find that their construction needs to be fixed somehow. Since I'm already taking too long on it, I thought I would show it to you guys and continue posting updates to my progress. Context for the piece: it is a scene of a gadgeteer girl planting an apple core under the guidance of a forest giant and her goblinoid sidekick. The setting is a garbage world and the background will reflect this once the key characters are hammered out (I wanted the characters to be able to be made into a spot illustration in the event that works better for the format).

Just to clarify my goals: This is an illustration I want to make part of a young adult story catered to ages 8 and up. I am illustrating it in a pastel style similar to Will Terry, and I am currently working on the manuscript. While I do pretty well when I'm asked to draw cartoons fast (in the context of a storyboard or comic) for some reason I go OCD with this sort of work, and I think part of the remedy for that is to be part of a community that can provide a new pair of eyes. I also have always liked Penny Arcade's artist's corner's culture and robust critique, and I'm looking for a critique community to be a part of.

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Iruka · May 2016

First off, welcome to the AC! Always nice to see a fresh face.

I think this is super charming! My only real concern with pose is that the giants hands are so saturated, with their placement they are sort of competing for attention. Since the hands aren't really doing anything, that might not be what you want, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to change that pose. It maybe worth playing with to see if you could bring the one behind the girls head up, and give it some sort of gesture.

The hand maybe will get pushed back with rendering though, it might look fine either way. I think the other two look great!

bdonoho · May 2016

Thank you so much Iruka! I'll definitely make sure the characters in the front are brighter. I really appreciate your feedback, and I'll be sure to continue to post here. By the way, do you guys still do those character vs character drawing tournaments where one artist draws his opponent's and his characters fighting eachother in a short comic and the other artist responds with his own comic? I loved those, but that was back in, like, 2006 or something.

Iruka · May 2016

haha, wow you've been lurking for a long time, friend. No, we've gotten a few activities off here and there, but as people get older and busy, its harder for people to dedicate time. It's too bad, they were fun as hell. I still have some of my old battle pages stuffed away in a folder.

bdonoho · May 2016

Well I hope we can do that again someday! With stuff like Picarto and livestreaming, we may even be able to record a "match" blow-by-blow, with two artists speed drawing a live exchange. The first artist who wins the coin toss would have a half hour to draw a panel, then the other artist would draw the responding panel, and it could go for six 30 minute sessions. After the recording, the panels could be posted on the forum, held to a vote, and the winner precedes to the next round. That's just the first idea, but there's lots of ways we could play with it. The guys from Drawfee do stuff like that.

Iruka · May 2016

I like the way you think. I've been thinking of getting more into streaming, though I was thinking of going for twitch.

Some comic collabs would be awesome.

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Looking for feedback on the poses for a Children's book illustration

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