Need Some Composition Help

[Jeremy Hamann]

Hey all! I’m working on November’s HTFYA and I’m struggling with the composition/perspective a bit.

I’m going for kids as a foreground element and parents as a mid ground element. I like how having them all at one table guides the eye through the piece, but I worry I’m not pushing the perspective hard enough and the kids just look really large, but I don’t want to make them too small and lose the focal point.

I tried doing a kid table / adult table situation, but I feel like it just awkwardly breaks the piece up.

Any advice? Thanks in advance!

[mag]

@Jeremy-Hamann
Hi Jeremy, it's a cool image you have there!
In the first illustration, the kids a bit look off. The bottom part of the table (the legs of the table, I suppose) also does not match your perspective.
Is there a reason you are worried, that having the kid in the correct proportions would mess up your focal point? You can have smaller characters being the focal point, using different methods, like color and value.
I'd also flip the guy eating with the fork so he's facing to other side. Now him facing the trim of the page brings me out of the illustration.

[mag]

@Jeremy-Hamann Or maybe you could force the perspective even more - let the kids sit on one end of the table and the grown-ups on the other end. Bring some interesting foreground elements (like pans and dried vegetables, or a corner of another table with a bowl and cup on it...)
I did a very rough and ugly sketch explaining it maybe better.

You can then use the foreground elements to tell the story - there might be different weird/scary food ingredients the cook possibly used

[Jeremy Hamann]

@mag Super helpful!! Yeah, that sketch is definitely what I was going for, I just don't have a strong enough grasp on perspective to achieve that yet haha. Adding the foreground elements help a ton, makes the space feel more like an actually lived-in space as well.

I did have the guy with the fork facing to the right intentionally, it's a bit of a piece on sharing new foods between cultures, so it's meant to be as if he's hiding the fact that he's struggling to eat the food, but that's a good point about it being thrown off the page.