Children's Book Pro continuation: Which pose?
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Could you give me your vote on which of these poses best conveys Gretel's moment of decision right before she pushes the Witch into the oven? On the spread before, she is still terrified, with the Witch towering over her. The spread after is a close up of her furious face as she pushes the Witch in (we don't see the Witch).
Never mind various inconsistencies in the drawing, whether she is in front of or behind the tail, line thickness, logs, dishes, etc. Feel free to mention those, but I'm mainly trying to pick the right storytelling moment for now. But the third one has a different facial expression, so if you think that's important, mention that.
This is from the Children's Book Pro course. I'm now going back to the lessons I didn't have time to finish this summer.
Thank you for your vote!
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Nice drawing, as always, Laura! Gretel is adorable and the witch's expression is spot on.
Here is my take on what you've shared:
The first pose communicates Gretel's intention; I love that she's leaning towards the witch but not quite touching her -- we can see the wheels turning in her head and it matches the text, where she's clearly plotting to trick the witch. However, if your goal is to communicate Gretel's internal conflict, then I do feel a disconnect with the determined facial expression. That's communicating to me that she knows what she's about to do and isn't going to hesitate. If you want to communicate indecision in Gretel's pose, maybe try out a few more facial expressions?
The second and third poses -- looking like she's about to flee (actually turning her body away from the action) in the second, and in the third her body eaning away from the witch -- don't convey forward movement and progression of the character for me. Those poses tell me that she's scared about what the witch is doing in the oven for some reason and/or is getting herself outta there. She doesn't read as a dynamic character to me in those poses.
In this composition, the thing that's really throwing me is the dark tail. Why is it there? It seems to be in the way and the heavy horizontal shape it's creating might be hurting your storytelling instead of helping it. It protrudes into Gretel's space, and being the character who is actually the one moving the story forward, Gretel needs some room to shine in this comp. It would be great if no part of these characters was touching or overlapping the other. Because the witch is so much bigger than Gretel, the witch is always going to be dominant in the illustration -- how is Gretel going to hold her own against such a dominant shape? Lighting? Value? Both?
Again, loving your expressive linework and skillful characterization. Just wanted to share some thoughts as they might not be things you've seen, and maybe that will help you take this illo in the direction you want it to go. Please share its progression with us!
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I agree with Melissa, the first one depicts Gretel's murderous intent the best. Double agree about the facial expression. It would be better (for the children) if it looked like Gretel was building up courage, oppose to stone cold killer face.
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Hi Lauren!
I like the first one as well. I tried doing a draw-over by changing the expression a bit (I don't think I nailed it) and lowering her hands. It seemed to me in the original that her hands were in a place where she already decided to push the witch. Whereas here, with her hands lower, she's perhaps slowly coming to the decision. I also shaved off some of the witch's tail so you could see her hands better. I really love the character design for the witch! She's terrifying! XD
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Ok, so variations on the first one. I'll give it a try!
I forgot to mention that for this posting, I turned off the layers for values and there was a lot of extra line work that I turned off as well, but somehow for the witch, I had accidentally included the tail shading on the original drawing layer. That's why the tail is the only dark thing in the composition. But yes, it's also the position of the tail that's a problem, and I still need to figure that out.
Thanks for your extra eyeballs and fresh brains!
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Does one of these three new poses effectively convey the moment between after cowering and before action? They show varying amounts of fear and hesitation, but are otherwise similar.
To help show the context, at the bottom I have added some extremely rough thumbnails showing the pages before and after.
I also took out the tail value.
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I really like the last face and gesture. It's seem contemplative and apprehensive. Then in the next spread she's stone cold and ticked
(kidding)
Looks great IMHO!!!!