Share July HTFYA Ideas & WIP - (Food Truck)

[jahn]

Hi! I don't think there is a thread already, so I'm starting this one. I would love to start a discussion to share ideas, inspiration, and works in progress for the July HTFYA. I'm really excited to see what everyone makes!

I have brainstormed some ideas and I want to do more than one, but will probably only have time for one. So here are my extra ideas that anyone can take and run with:
(As you will see, I was reaalllly trying to think outside the box and push the definitions of "food," "truck," and "customers.")

• A cow is hooked up to an intricate trailer system that produces and serves ice cream.

• A milk cow has dozens of cats lined up to receive milk.

• A truck carrying lots of produce has tipped over and dozens of animals are feeding on the content.

  • flowers & bees
  • apples & horses, rabbits, goats, deer
  • Little Debbies & people
  • candy & children

• A spray truck/tractor is spreading fertilizer in a field of happy crops/flowers.

• A mother has made a truck-shaped cake for her young son's birthday party.

• A roadkill deer was just hit by a truck and a pack of wolves is feeding on it.(Since this isn't a children's book I thought there could be a little more freedom to push into morbidity.)

• An abandoned hearse is surrounded by Zombies....

Hopefully this inspires anyone who hasn't picked an idea yet and feel free to take an run with any of them!

[The Artful Spoldger]

Hi @jahn,
This is my second submission. I'm halfway through the HTFYA tute. This is a draft of an idea for an unusual food truck. I took some inspiration from Arthur Rackman's Witches. I like the idea of having a cup of witches' brew—it's winter down here in Oz.

[jakecrowe]

@The-Artful-Spoldger This is a super fun idea. I love the thought of a witch running a food truck, and all these other halloween characters eating her stuff up. My first thought though is, where's the truck?

Perhaps its a truck run on broom power, or a flying truck shaped like a broom. Lots of ways you could explore it.

[jakecrowe]

I've been working on this one, going to join in for the first time in a long time. The idea is a goat food truck offering Old Cans, Old Boots and Apple Cores to other Goat customers.

I lean toward thumbnail A but I'd love some other opinions than my own.

[The Artful Spoldger]

@jakecrowe yes my thinking was that her truck is her broom - "A truck like no other" She's got a custom rig with signage and the cauldron of witches brew hooked up and ready to serve...
And don't forget the magic flying cups delivering quality brew to the demon horde!

[jahn]

The idea I settled on was a dump truck full of trash driving to the landfill as various forest creatures wait in anticipation. The "she" will be a female driver and owner of the trash company.

[jahn]

I am working on the background. Any tips at this stage to improve the painting?

[Mandy Forte]

@jakecrowe I like A but you might want to flip the composition so that it leads you eye to the right. I like your concept too.

[Mandy Forte]

I am almost done but I’m wondering if I need to crop my composition. What are your thoughts?

[jahn]

@Mandy-Forte I like option 1, keeping the wide view to allow the eye to wander and take in the various characters and the stories being told.

[LauraA]

I wanted to participate in HTFYA this month because I'm trying to up my single-image storytelling. Here's one of my rough sketches. Unfortunately I told my critique group what the concept was already, so I need new guessers. What do you think it is? The story needs to be crystal clear or it's back to the drawing board!

[Mandy Forte]

@LauraA I like what you have here. What I see is that the food truck makes the clients dreams come true. I think the lines around the mermaid helped make that clear to me. I think you have done a great job.

[Sarah VanDam]

@jahn Hi! Just a couple thoughts:

You’re doing a great job of getting highly detailed with the background, but your focal point is ultimately going to be a food truck, so I’m thinking that all of your rendering and detail will detract from what you want the viewer to look at. You’ll eventually want to knock back the background pretty substantially (probably making it lighter and bluer to add atmospheric perspective). You might want to start with the truck and animals themselves and then fill in the background from there.

Also, this forest landscape seems to have a higher vantage point than your sketch where you show the bears in the foreground, so that could cause some issues for you.

[Sarah VanDam]

@LauraA I’m picking up on the popsicles being magical—They turn whoever eats them into whatever the popsicle is shaped like. That’s awesome! However, I can also see Will or Lee pretty quickly pointing out that the area of payoff is way too small. I think you need to zoom way in on the girls getting the ice cream. Also, there are a few details that feel a little out of left field: It makes sense that two little girls would want to be mermaids, but who got turned into giant fish in the background? And would a dog want to be turned into a car? (It was hard to discern that there was a car-shaped popsicle in the dog’s mouth, but it’s a bit confusing for me.) Also, it seems a bit confusing that there is an anthropomorphic dog handing out ice cream AND a relatively normal dog running on all fours in the same scene.

[jahn]

@Sarah-VanDam Thank you! I realize that I jumped full in to rendering the background and should have plotted out all my layers first. The vantage point is my biggest issue, because I would have to redo everything or make it from the point of view of a raccoon up in a tree. I haven't decided what I'll do yet.

[Gabby Correia]

@The-Artful-Spoldger I had a very similar idea! I'll have to continue brainstorming, you got to it first. Great minds think alike.

[LauraA]

Thanks @Mandy-Forte and @Sarah-VanDam. Mandy's guess was closer to my intent, but still, it needs to be perfectly clear.

Good point about the two dogs. In my mind the dog running on all fours was just an expression of his extreme enthusiasm, but I get your point and agree that that one is harder to read. I have another character that I could put there instead.

I also understand about the space/focal point issue. I had originally drawn a double spread so I could put in lots of examples, but maybe the scope has changed. Maybe putting the characters closer together would also make their popsicles larger and therefore the point clearer. I'll take another look at that.

[evka8D]

@Sarah-VanDam @LauraA These are my thoughts exactly. I could figure out what's going on but there was something off about the picture and I didn't know what I think you explained it well. I feel there's too much going on and it's confusing. Also I thought the dog is holding a photo camera

[LauraA]

@evka8D @Sarah-VanDam Is this version clearer? I just took out the fish with the treat because in fact there's no way to tell which way the transformation is going. I decided the other fish could be clients arriving on the scene. I also took out the boy's crown and cape so it would be evident that he's concentrating on his sand castle and also so there was no confusion about two crowns now that I've added a cat queen. And I took out the dog because it was confusing. Does it work better?

I tried a cropped version, but this one was just more harmonious. Since it's a still spread version, it also leaves room for the gutter.

[Gabby Correia]

So my general idea is a "Seaweed Pie" food truck run by a mermaid. Her customers will be pirates. I'm still refining the idea and the story/ twist to the idea, but started with the character design of my foodie mermaid character. Here I share my process: