Feedback for my sprout illustration please

[Ellinor]

Hi everyone, this is Liam and Lancelot that is keeping me company this inktober. I would love to get som feedback on my sprout illustration for this month's critique arena. How can I improve it?

I'm thinking of maybe adding some color to the sprouts to make them pop a bit more but I'm not sure.

[aprilshin]

Hi Ellinor,

I love your little sprouts!! This is such an adorable idea. I like that they're all doing something different but also interacting with the main character in some way. And I can feeel the poofiness and coziness of the jacket so well done there! Here are a few suggestions I have. Feel free to ignore any that don't resonate with you!

• I love the breaks in your line work in the grass and I think incorporating that throughout the whole piece will make it feel more organic
• The best thing about scarves IMO is the texture so go crazy~!
• Maybe you can try varying the shapes of the sprouts?
• Adding a few background elements will help create depth

I did a little drawover so you can see what I mean. Oh, I also changed the direction the tree bark was going because it seems more fun to me to have the lines curve around the tree than to have it go up and down. Also, I can't draw animals to save my life so I omitted the dragon

[Ellinor]

Thank you so much @aprilshin for the kind words and feedback! And thank you for taking the extra time to even do a drawover! I really like the idea of adding more texture to the scarf and trying to make everything look a bit more organic and yes I really need a proper background. I also really like the softness you added in the drawover compared to my very pointy edges, it made everything look a lot more welcoming. I will take it with me and work a bit more on it! Thank you again!

[K.Flagg]

I agree that the detail should be in the knit scarf and not the tree. That really reads much better. This is a really cute idea though. I love the little sprout characters. They have a lot of personality for being a simple design and that is hard to do.

[Ellinor]

Thank you @K-Flagg, I'm happy you like the little sprouts! And I really agree with you, the tree sticks out and takes too much focus right now, I will try and fix it.

[blamillo]

The sprouts remind me of the Koroks from the Zelda games. Or maybe the Junimos from Stardew Valley? They're all kinds of fun little forest sprites

I want to see them playing more. Could you have a few playing hide-and-seek in the scarf? Making mischief with the human character's shoelaces? Dancing with a flower? Swinging from a thread hanging over the tree branch? Throwing around acorns, or fencing with tiny twigs? Maybe another one stuffing its little face with something tasty? So much you could do with them.

As for background ideas, my imagination is going for a collosal mama sprout forming a big hill in the background. I've been drawing lots of hills and valleys and mountains lately - they're fun to layer up.

[Ellinor]

This is the new version I've made after receiving the feedback. I made a lot of changes and also used a thinner lines this time (maybe the lines are too thin now?). We now have a background and also a more cozy scarf. I changed the tree a bit and the dragon as well as soften the sharp edges.

Thanks @blamillo for the great ideas! I tried playing around a bit with the sprouts and make them do a bit different things but in the end I wanted the feel of the drawing to be more calm and peaceful so I decided to keep them as they were but give them a bit more personality. I loved the idea of the mama sprout so I added her in the background carefully watching over her kids from the distance.

Please let me know if you have any feedback on it!

[blamillo]

Haha! Yay for mama sprout!

Personally, the new scarf texture doesn’t really do it for me. I think it needs some alternating patterns rather than continuous flowing lines to get that cozy knitted yarn feel, and it might be easier to indicate folds and wrinkles that way too.

Regarding your line width: one thing I often do with inked pieces is thicken up the lines in the foreground, particularly the outermost lines of each object. It can help restore a bit of depth if that’s disappeared at some point in the process.

[Ellinor]

Thank you for the feedback @blamillo! I understand what you mean with the scarf and will see if I can fix it and add some folds. Really nice tip about the linewidth too! Thank you again!