Still Slowvembering...critique please?

[Gary Wilkinson]

Great job on the drawing, and I think the setting looks really nice, however I'm unsure as to what the blonde boy (Edmund?) is doing. I think if I had the context then I could understand things better, but without it I was thinking that he is about to hit something and the beaver is shocked at his actions.

I presume Edmund needs to be facing the other way in the story, but it feels like it breaks the nice composition you have going on as it is now focused on the bottom left corner of the frame, rather than the beaver in the center. This does make me think, what is happening off screen, but i'm guessing the action should be within the table area.

Another thing that caught my eye is that the size and positioning of the 2 characters in the foreground is off. In the perspective that you have, they would be sitting quite far from the actual table and quite a bit smaller in proportions to the boy with the black hair.

[LauraA]

@Gary-Wilkinson, thank you for your critique! The context is that Edmund is about to sneak out and betray the group. At first I just had him slouched and turned a bit to the left, but people wanted to see more of his face, so I turned him more towards the viewer as if he is about to get up, and I gave him a more clearly annoyed expression.

Would it help if it were clearer that his hand is resting on the table and not pulled back as if to throw a punch? And if it helps, I was planning to put him in shadow and do other things with color and contrast to put more attention on Mr. Beaver.

Story context: Mr. Beaver is telling them all about the lion king Aslan, and it produces different effects in each of them. The rest of the children feel inspired in one way or another, but Edmund feels disdainful, because he under the influence of the White Witch.

There is a moment during this scene when, as Mr. Beaver gets more and more excited (not angrily, just zealously), he pounds his fist on the table. That should be more or less the moment at which Edmund decides to leave, but since no one notices that he's gone for a few minutes, I'm using the table-pounding as a good excuse for them to be distracted. The conversation is in fact compelling enough that they might not have noticed their surroundings, but it also has to make sense visually, without the reader knowing the whole conversation.

As this piece has developed, it's true that Edmund has taken more and more prominence, and also the characters have shifted around and may have gotten off their original perspective points. I realize that these things can be a danger, so maybe it's time to stop, go back to the original intent (and grid), and look at the "big picture" again.

Thanks again! I keep drawing these characters over and over, but they do need to preserve the original idea somehow! I've now fully realized just how difficult it is to seat five people around a table and have them interact!

And just in case anyone wants to see how this scene developed, here are the threads. I started new ones because I realize some people have their forum set to see new posts only.

https://forum.svslearn.com/topic/10451/even-sloooowervember-wip-feedback-please/10 (second thread with some changes to the composition and values)

https://forum.svslearn.com/topic/10388/slowvember-narnia-project/9 (first thread with thumbnails and the development of the environment and characters)

[Meg Clayburn]

@LauraA I think Edmund does have more a focus but I like that better than mr. Beaver bring the focus. I think the expression looks great and matches the style of the other expressions. Also, I totally knew that the scene was needle I started reading, so good job!

[Lorna H]

I am just so impressed with your commitment and patience to get your image just right. Amazing also to hear from @xin-li how many redraws of images she does to perfect her books, very inspiring! I always feel very unqualified to comment on anyone’s posts as I’m a beginner at all this but I can see how amazingly people’s images develop through critique and want to be a supportive forum member!

So, here’s my small points but feel free to ignore . I really liked the way you showed the edge of Susan’s face rather than the back of her head as in earlier versions, however I still wasn’t certain if she was looking at Peter, Beaver or Edmund. I wondered whether you might kill two birds with one stone by shifting her body position a fraction so she is leaning forward, elbows on the table with hands still up by her mouth (same expression), but this would allow her to be leaning in to Beaver as the point of focus whilst also showing that she had her side to Edmund who was slinking away unnoticed. I realise this might affect how much of her face can or cannot be seen so feel free to ignore!

I thought @xin-li’s suggestion to move the cup so Beavers hand was more visible was excellent, as on first sight I didn’t appreciate that he was slamming his fist on table. I wondered if a shadow below his hand an a flatter edge to his paw like his first has hit the table might emphasise this point.

I also just wanted to say I LOVED your “together” image yesterday. I loved the concept of arguing in the car (which I did for many years with my sisters) but also love your line work and the retro feel to your images. A triumph!

[LauraA]

This post is deleted!

[LauraA]

@Gary-Wilkinson I have a question specifically about the perspective: When you say the positioning of the 2 characters in the foreground is off, and that they would be sitting far from the actual table and smaller in proportion to the boy with black hair, do you mean that they should be smaller in proportion to Peter (with the black hair), or that they are too small in proportion to him and thus should be bigger? I agree that their being bigger makes them look farther from the table, so maybe you're saying they should be smaller?

Anyway, I spent some time this morning going back over my original perspective drawings, and here's what I came up with. In accordance with these sketches, I shifted things around from yesterday and the back characters got even smaller. Mrs. Beaver and Edmund were shifted after the perspective drawings for reasons that don't have anything to do with perspective. But it could be that I have made a mistake and Edmund and Susan should be smaller to they will appear closer to the table.

Thank you!

[krish iyer]

hey there! amazed with how good this looks, there was no doubt of what the scene was, even being unfamiliar with the Narnia series I was able to distinguish the characters and their role in the scene
one thing I noticed is, the female beaver has one item of clothing so I was wondering how it would look if the mal beaver had one clothing item too,
again im not familiar with this story so I'm not sure if that's something you would like to do or not
also it appeared to me that the first girl to the right seemed to be a little zoned out, as if she isnt listening or paying attention

but the overall composition and rendering of the drawing is absolutely stunning, great work!

[ruth]

This looks great! I love how your illustration has developed - it's really brought home how complex it is getting a group of characters to interact, whilst avoiding all the things that SVS teaches about showing faces and tangents and such. I'm learning so much from everything on the forum and workshops, so thank you for sharing your progress.

I think the perspective looks better in this version and I wanted to make one small suggestion (I'm certainly no expert so I might be totally off the mark here ) but Edmund's arm on the table doesn't look quite right to me. I wonder if deleting it might be better, so that he's totally turned away and seperate from the group, then he could be in darkness to represent his turning to the 'dark side' in contrast to the light of the others?

Not sure if that would work or not but regardless I think your composition and drawing are amazing! Really inspiring

[LauraA]

So, I redid all the perspective yet again in two different ways today, because I realized it wasn't consistent. In the end, I chose this version.

@meg-clayburn-0, @Lorna-H @krish-iyer and @ruth. Thank you for your kind comments! I did take all your comments quite seriously, and I'm still working things out. As you can see, this is not finished yet, but I realized that my head heights were all wrong and it was either redo the whole room (tried that and didn't like it) or pull Ed and Susan's heads up a lot. I'm not so pleased that we are looking at Susan's back at the moment, but I'll keep thinking things through. And I just started redrawing Lucy. If nothing else, this is going to be my perspective baptism by fire piece! The next one has to be easier, right?!

And yes, Edmund will be in shadow in the end. That's one way I was going to isolate him.

[krish iyer]

great work! I'm loving how this is turning out, I'm glad I could help :)))