4 May 2023, 05:09
I like the idea of greying out other riders, and if it's not rush hour, there are enough people for a tube.
Composition help for illustration
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Hi all. I would appreciate any feedback on the attached image. This is a personal piece, but the story is that the little boy got separated from his mother while riding the subway. I want the focus to be of course on the boy, thus very few adult heads. My plan is to keep the adults and background quite dull and grayed out so the boy stands out more. Does this look busy enough for the subway; not busy enough? any composition changes that might help?
Thanks!!
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@tom-barrett That'd be terrifying- hopefully he finds her soon! I like your idea of greying out the adults and the background. Something that stands out to me compositionally is that the 2 people closest to the little boy are very close to him. Without your explanantion, I don't know if I would've figured out that he's lost and alone. They seem like they're travelling with him. Especially since the person on his right has their foot pointed towards him- it ties them together. I thought that was his mom before I read your description. Maybe try switching that adult's feet so they point away from the little boy instead? Or put more space between those 2 adults and him?
And, it's not compositional, but I feel like the little boy's posture seems to read as thoughtful or worried, but not afraid. I feel like he'd be holding himself more tightly, maybe gripping his coat, hunched over a little, and close up next to the pole, gripping it tightly too. Maybe with his knees bent inwards just a little? When I'm trying to draw emotions, it helps to google full-body photos of people expressing them, so I can see the body language.
Sorry this was long, but I hope it helps. I like the concept a lot, and how you hid the faces of most of the adults. That's really effective! I also like how you placed the boy/focal point off-center. Nice work so far!
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I agree with NickyDrew's observation that the people standing behind the boy seem to "belong" with him a little too much. Also that he doesn't seem terrified per se -- though that actually drew me into the story, since 'thoughtful and worried' is a more unusual reaction for a lost child. If it was part of his character to think through what to do rather than panicking, that would interest me. (Though I don't think you could get that he had lost his mother just from the picture alone -- I think you'd need some text for that).
I like the plan to grey out the other riders, and I do think there's enough people in terms of total numbers for a subway, if it's not rush hour. But I think they are a little oddly distributed, with seemingly fewer on the left side of the page than the right (but not enough fewer that it seems fully intentional). I think adding more riders so that there's more of a uniform density would help them all fade together as a backdrop better and increase the boy's isolation. Also I really like how it's mostly legs without heads--you might even play with adding more people standing in front of the seated riders so you don't really see anyone's face but the boy's?
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I really like the idea of cropping the adults. I also like that he is holding the pole, where he should be holding his mum’s hand.
However, as mentioned before, there are maybe too many adults on the right, next to the boy and not enough on the left. Compositionally, to be lost is to be alone, hence you could place a lot of people on the left and nobody around the boy. Or you could have an homogenous distribution of people with a gap around the boy.
Maybe try different solutions with quick thumbnails?
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I like the idea of greying out other riders, and if it's not rush hour, there are enough people for a tube.
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@tom-barrett Very nice concept and I like the initial sketch!
I won't reiterate what everyone else has already said, but I pretty much agree with the issues of the adults being too close to him.
I was thinking it might be good to show him reacting to losing his mom. That is, you could have him looking around generally, or maybe looking behind him where he thought she was? That way, it's perhaps more clear that he's supposed to have been with her recently, as opposed to him just being a solo kid roaming the subway.
On the flip side, you could figure out a composition in which we can see the mom, but the kid can't. I know the "audience-knows-something-the-characters-don't" method is often very effective.
Looking forward to seeing where this goes!
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@NickyDrew @GabeRobinson @Geoffrey-Mégardon @koricat @skeletortoise Thanks everyone for your feedback. All good ideas. WIll work up a new sketch and post here soon.