Is this working?

[Pamela Fraley]

This is super rough, but I’m trying out a prompt from one of the classes and I’m wondering if this composition is working? I’m struggling because I want to show everyone’s expression as well as the tv screen. I also wanted to push the size of the dog for humor/contrast. He’s the biggest character and he’s totally frightened. I feel like I have seen much more exaggerated images than this - ones that work really well and I’m not sure how to get there. Any advice or feedback is appreciated!

[Pamela Fraley]

Oh, he’s eyeing the t-Rex toy on the floor, I realize that I didn’t darken that up much before I uploaded this.

[Holumpa]

@Pamela-Fraley I like the style, the dog is just perfect :D. I also think the composition works. But until you mentioned it I did not see the toy at all. I am wondering if you could push that he is afraid by letting him hide his face under his paws. He could then also lift his right paw to eye the toy more obviously. I hope you undertand what I mean, sorry for my English.

[Pamela Fraley]

@Holumpa thank you. What you said makes total sense. I think I’m gonna keep playing around with this. Trying to figure out what it is that makes compositions go from boring to awesome. I had a few thumbnails, but I was mostly exploring the storytelling with those. I might try to move some things around and see if I like it better.

[KatrinaF]

OMG I love this concept and composition. Lots of eye movement and its so funny! I just did this to add my 2 cents.

Since the screen Godzilla is so white I made the toy super dark. I increased it in size and lowered the dogs head. Moved his eyes up to look up in fear of the toy.

I changed the cat just for fun cause they are such stinkers. He's giving the butt to the screen cause he can! LOL Mine does distract though so don't change your aloof cat.

[Griffin McPherson]

@Pamela-Fraley what exactly is the prompt? It will make it a bit easier to give feedback if we know that.

Right now the main subject is right in the middle of the image which generally makes it very hard to pull off a compelling illustration. Lee often says that if you’re going to have the main subject in the center than you better have a really good reason for doing so. As things are right now it doesn’t feel like there is a good enough reason to have them centered.

My suggestion would be to thumbnail out some more compositions. Think about all the possible camera angles you could show this from. Maybe the perspective is looking out from the tv but since you want to show the screen you could show it in the reflection of the characters eyes/other objects in the room. Hope this helps!

[Pamela Fraley]

@KatrinaF That is super helpful! Thank you!! I was thinking about exploring some other angles and compositions, but your draw over makes this one better. If I end up sticking to this one, I think I’ll make those changes, especially with the dog. I like what you did with the cat too. I’m going for contrast everywhere, so I like how much more exaggerated he is like that.

[Pamela Fraley]

@Griffin I should have put that in there. The class is “developing great visual stories” and the prompt is : “A dog hides.”

I’m trying to hit all the elements in what Will calls a level 4 illustration. I thought about the reasons a dog would hide, and came up with some basic ideas that I didn’t like. But, then I thought about our dog Wayne, who is literally Gigantic and the biggest chicken. I thought it would be funny to put him hiding behind someone clearly smaller than him. I’m attempting to have secondary story, contrast of emotions, the viewer know something the kid doesn’t…

[Pamela Fraley]

This is based off my giant chicken of a dog. Here he is with my daughter, she’s small for a 14 year old, but you can see how huge he is. He’s so cute.

[Kristen Lango]

Hey Pam! I like where this is headed and I think you've got a great start with this rough sketch. Here are my inital thoughts: the TV was reading more like a window to me so I changed that a bit - I think it'd be nice to see more of what's happening on the screen and I think it's not a bad idea to have it on a table to prevent it from looking like a window. My other notes are to maybe try to push the pose a little bit more and to keep working on that frightened expression. Can't wait to see where you head with this!