21 Jan 2022, 11:04

I'm working on the initial sketches for a magazine cover. The concept is a kind of utopian small garden with edible plants, habitats for insects and birds etc. The idea is to show off how there are a lot of little DIY things people can do for biodiversity in their garden, and have it look beautiful.

The illustration should work as the front cover separately, but also as a whole (front and back cover combined, 2x A4).
While I believe I usually have a reasonable grasp of composition, I struggle with judging the composition when it's this busy. Here I'm emphasizing the bee as a main focus on the front cover, which I think works, but I'm unsure of the whole. I don't want to simplify too much, as the whole concept is to show off a lot of ideas.

I'd love to read your thoughts on this!
(the rectangle behind the bee is space I left for the title. There's not going to be other text covering the illustration except for small print along the top)

rough sketch2.jpg