@Meg-Clayburn Oh this is such a great detail, i will try that too, thanks a lot 🌱

@kayleenartlover there ate also the storytelling collective challenges. They are affiliated with Drivethrurpg and roll20 and have several writing courses and challenges going on during the year

I will suggest to get the ideas down on paper. Because whenever you ask if someone is interested you are giving a second seat to your own interest, and that is what will make your work a great read, if you want to write it, so start small, put a deadline on and go for it.
We will be here helping the best we can

@J-Morgan-Looney I LOVE Guznag's work! I have been following him for a while and I love how his lines are so expressive. I can see now a bit of that influence in your work here.

@jenn thank you, this is great!!

It looks amazing. May be one of them is the mother and as there are dishes in the background so maybe she’s wearing an apron and has a bit long hair on her. Adding props to the zombies can make them unique i guess

I tweaked it more. I tried to solve the issue of the squirrel appearing disproportionately large, and I also shrunk the salamander since it was a bit too big for the flora around it. Did I lose anything in the composition with these changes? Did it work better before? Thank you.

Untitled-3 copy.jpg

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Hi and thank you for your advice! I totally agree that my hands are not the best one, so they could be definitely improved! All the best for you too!

@TheresaMuth Yes, good point. Full disclosure I normally use perspective lines (the Procreate perspective drawing guide drawing assist layer is a great help) but I thought I could be clever and wing it this time around. I obviously ran into problems. The original point of view was going to be from the floor up but as I struggled I decided I'd just change it to have the mouse sitting on a table. 🙈 Oh my gosh, how lazy was that?! Anyway, I'll make the changes @Kevin-Longueil mentioned and I should probably draw in the table edge that he's sitting on so that it's clear. Lesson learned! I'm not at the point in my journey to be winging my perspectives just yet!

Hi Luke! Welcome! I really like your style. The first thing I noticed was that the last (farthest) cross rail on the fence doesn't decrease in width like the first two. Second, the point of highest contrast (IMO) is at the pinky finger/elbow up against the white of the fence. Intentional? (Is holding the ice cream the main point of your story.) Finally, the edges on the left side of the page are so "lost" / fuzzy as compared to the right side -- maybe this was intentional to show distance, but then the street and sidewalk between his legs don't follow the same rules.
This makes me want to see more of your work and i would love to see your next version of this one. Very intriguing style. ** LIKE **

@kayleenartlover Super fun piece, and it’s great to see you working so hard on it.

To me, the dresser does not read as white. I think there are two things that might be working together against you here:

One is that the cats and bed in the foreground do not have the same value or hue of shadow placed on them (i.e. the cats are still pretty bright orange and the bed is very blue compared to the dark greenish shadow in the BG.) I think the left thumbnail above you have is better at making the characters fit into the scene overall.
(This one seems like a stretch but I thought I’d throw it out there.)

The other (probably more prominent) is that the value of the dresser is lower than the value of the wall behind it. I know the lamp is casting some light on the wall, but the way it’s framed, most of the wall we see is quite light and to me, it makes the dresser appear dark.

Ways to help might be:

The lamp light could be dimmer, making the wall darker. I think that the main light source seems to be coming from the moon outside and this is really pretty. Maybe the lamp light being dimmer could even help the mood of the piece somewhat.

Try to lighten the value of the dresser.

Try to darken the foreground characters some. (This would be my last resort.)

Just to be clear, I do not think these “issues” take away from the piece at all - just addressing the dresser problem. The piece seems really nice and cohesive already and I like the colors you’ve chosen.

@Juliana-Soares I'm sure you will, and it'll be great! Sometimes you work on something so long you can't see it clearly anymore. Some good advice I got was to put the drawing aside for a while, then when you come back to it you'll see it with fresh eyes. 😋

@kayleenartlover I vote for gold. It's got more depth and variety. 😃

@Kristen-Lango Hi, Thank you!
Yup, I have been working on it...endlessly...but I'm finding this a really great piece for lots of trial and error. In fact, I'm even considering changing it into an internal illustration and then being able to make the cover more figurative. That way this one can be more literal, without the many-seasons and tree-wolves.

The colour palette thing is a very good point... I love using many colours, or variations on a bunch of colours, but then I feel like I have to hold myself back and limit it because that's what so many illustrators say to do. So it's really helpful to know what your reaction was to those limited colours on the girls' clothes.

Right, I'll keep going...

what I see is: the guy in white shirt on the sofa was beaten up by the guy who is holding the wrist of a woman. Probably the white shirt man was drunk and say something inappropriate to the woman. Her boyfriend punched the drunk man as a response. Everyone is shoked by what just happened.

In terms of feedback, there is something weird happening in the face of the man holding the wrist of a woman. It seems that the face of another woman is blending with his face, while this woman should be in the background.

Edit: wait, I understood, the man and the woman are "cuddling" a girl, probably their daughter. This is why the girl is in front of the man face but behing the woman's breast. Hence, the drunk man probably said something inappropriate to their daughter.

@Laura-Hunt My pleasure! Can't wait to see your work in the future. Best of luck with the picture book dummy submission. 🙂

@Shelley-James-0 very nice work. Good job on getting to this point.

I have a few suggestions - I think the biggest thing that is missing here is a true focal point. You need to have something that you want to direct viewers to. It can be anything really, but you need to pick something. Then the image will start suggesting what it wants. For example, if ONE of those little huts starts to get attention, we can start to downplay other areas of the image.

I did a very fast paint over (sorry its so sloppy), but just to sort of show what I mean. Your is the top image and mine is the bottom. I picked that middle right little structure, then just leaned the focal point there by darkening other areas and then trying to add some detail in the area where I want you to look. Thinking this way makes building an image much much easier. : )

Hope this helps some. : )

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@Griffin-McPherson Yep I agree with you here Griffin, it is easier to begin from scratch and thumbnail, establish values, create your focus and develop elements from there. I know, I'm in that boat too, trying to learn to not do what always gets me into trouble when a composition just isn't working. It sucks sometimes 😞 But that said, you do have beautiful rendering techniques and I love your textures, colors, and mood...

@Abigail-Hookham This is so cute, and the bottles definitely stand out more now.

@Griffin this is marvelous! I absolutely love it because I feel that I've never seen this before (which can be rare in kidlit art) - great job with the color picking and the lighting!

The only thing that I found when looking at it a little harder are the hands of the girl in the orange-ish sweater. There is this impression I get that they aren't really grabbing onto the bee as maybe they should be, but I also feel like I'm being picky.

I really struggled to find something to suggest to change. This is an awesome piece!

Looks amazing. I love the characters' expressions, colour choices and muted backgrounds.

If you don't mind, can you share a bit about how you decided on the edges, shapes and gradations for the blue-purply backgrounds?

I really like how they are are kind of abstract and atmospheric at the same time- would love to know a bit more on your process for those.