@BichonBistro Oh no, I was really hoping for your sake that she was moving on. I’m not even sure what to say. Regardless of how you choose to approach this, deadlines and boundaries need to be communicated. The truth is, that this can get a whole lot worse and become even more time consuming than it has already. Of course it can go the other way as well - you may be able to finalize the design, convert to vector, and send it to print and embroidery with little issue. It just doesn’t seem realistic. Know your limits and communicate them as thoroughly as possible. I would suggest staying out of the printing and embroidery process if you get to that point - do not get roped into sending the files directly to print /embroidery companies or providing prepared files, because you will become the problem solver and point of contact. Honestly, if you have not told her that you would convert it to vector, than I would avoid that as well. Print and embroidery companies have prepress departments, let them convert it. She is lucky to be getting this much of your time for free.
So I have these edited ones. I am going with the more purple one because it is warmer/lighter and I wanted yellow and purple (complementary colours -I rarely use).
Thank you for everyone who assisted my blunder through colour -both Corel E5 and PCS6 helped me.
@Kevin-Longueil Dude this is super handy. Thank you for posting this! I'm always leery of handing money over to someone for a review. I may indulge in this, though!
@Daria-Khil
https://forum.svslearn.com/topic/7589/our-svs-virtual-studio-june-2019/89
Now we make a new thread every month -now that this thread is so popular.
@theprairiefox yes I think you're right I don't think I'm going to go back and fix this due to time committments (moving forward with new art), but I want to learn for the going forward stuff. And, who knows, I may come back to it again so if I do I will definitely be fixing those lips
@Maxi-Silva This is really nicely done. It's awesome that this is your first digital artwork!
While I don't know much about creating comics, I'd like to urge you to continue to explore the format in both the traditional and digital medium. I'm sure the SVSLearn courses would be of great help on your journey as well.
@Judy-Elizabeth-Wilson the finish on this is great. I love the style and think it works really well. But I have a couple questions for you.
What is the feeling you are trying to capture with this page? Reading the text I get a feeling of urgency but I am not getting that from the picture. I was thinking that maybe you were going for a feeling of 'oh, no' from the elves and 'calm' from Santa. If that is the case, I think you might want to lean into it more. Give the elves bigger expressions especially with their body language.
Is there a reason every elf is a different color? I find it a little distracting, but if it is part of the story don't mess with it.
I think the sizes are fine. Mr. & Mrs. Claus are clearly bigger than the elves and different.
Looking good, now I wonder about the rest of the story.
@12before34 Uhmmm okay, here's an example. Last year I made this illustration of a haunted library.
I started with a freehand quick sketch. I usually have an idea how I want it to look so I do this first, because it's very important to understand that you have to decide where you place your horizon and vanishing points depending on what angle YOU want. Not placing random points then being a slave to them to the end! That's why I use my freehand sketch to help me determine where to place my horizon and points to obtain the exact angle that I want.
From there, I placed my horizon line and vanishing points. I place my VP in my mind, but you can physically place yours. If you draw traditionally it will often involve taping some additional pieces of paper to your drawing to draw vanishing points outside he frame. From there, I suggest you use your vanishing points to draw some guides on your picture (then you can remove your vanishing points because you won't need them anymore with the guides to help you). The guides look like this when I'm done:
From there I draw my final sketch on top with the correct perspective. It's similar to my freehand because I'm good at eyeballing perspective, but sometimes there's a more drastic difference at this stage:
Final
There you go, that's my complete process.
@ShannonBiondi , that’s very kind of you. But after watching the crits that Lee did on past contest entries, one thing really stuck with me. There has to be a clear story for it to really be an illustration. If the image has to be explained, or if you need to know what the topic is first to actually “get” the scene, it’s probably not a good illustration. Might be a good picture, but not an illustration that tells a story. My first sketch could be anything as the patient- an alligator, a monster, a guy with really bad teeth... So while I really appreciate your encouragement, I think I need to go a different route in order to try to illustrate the topic. Maybe at a later date, I will develop that first idea, just as a crazy dentist picture.
