Portfolio piece- Anthropomorphic Animals- WIP

Nyrryl Cadiz

Hi, everyone! So I’m back at it again. I’m trying to beef up my portfolio. I’m really lacking antrhopomorphic characters in my pieces. Walking-talking animals is a huge genre in of itself and I don’t want to turn off a client in the future just because I don’t have such works in my portfolio. So that is why today I’m creating this illustration and an trying to cram in as much anthropomorphic animals as I can.

For this piece, I want it to feel light and happy. The characters below are performing a dance called Itik-itik which is a traditional Filipino folk dance that mimics the movements of a duck. “Itik” in Filipino means duck. So Itik-itik... well, you know the rest. This is commonly danced by students during the month of August when Philippines is celebrating its Filipino Month or “Buwan ng Wika”. I personally never got the chance to dance in on of these. I never had the rhythm or the grace.

The story for this piece is that those 2 girls in the front are rival dancers. While the chicken girl is happy to just be there, the duck girl (how convenient ) is not so thrilled. She’s a duck after all! This dance is about her! She should be the star. Alas, she has to share the spotlight with her avian foe. Hehehehe so intense

I figure I still have to add more characters in the background but I’ll do that in the painting stage. Right now, I think the sketch is conveying the story just fine. I hope you guys like it. Thanks

MichaelaH

@nyrrylcadiz It is beautiful, nice story, great characters, it will look great in color. I don't know if You want the feedback, I am not so good in percpective now, but in the front the you see inside of the coco nut but I think you should'nt, because whole scene is looking up (the ceiling, the music boxes)

Jonas Zavacky

@nyrrylcadiz This is looking great! Can't wait to see the final. Althought I would say that the focal point as of now seems to be the pig and the goat (everybody is kinda pointing at them - the little sheep, the pigs behind the dance area and also the cow is kinda looking at them). For me it was the first area that i noticed.

Maybe just shift everybody eyes and pointers to the two girls? I know that it is tricky to adjust it at this stage :D.

Otherwise really great idea. It is really showing your ability to draw anthropomorpic animals and I think that is the main thing.

Nyrryl Cadiz

@Jonas-Zavacky thanks for the input! I’d like to think that the people can see how bitter looking the duck girl is so they overlook her and instead focus their attention on the dancers who are actually having fun that’s why no one is paying attention to her. The characters are aboiding her but hopefully I can divert the audiences’ gaze through value and color work.

Nyrryl Cadiz

@MichaelaH no worries! Every comment/critique is valuable for me. Be it good or bad, it helps my work a lot. Now about the coconut. I think we can see the inside because of how the dog character is holding it.

Chip Valecek

@nyrrylcadiz I think it is looking great so far. I don't think you need to add any more characters into the back. It might get to crowded back there. My suggestion would be to flip the duck to face right and the other girl to flip and face left so they are facing each other. Looking forward to how it turns out.

shinjifujioka

@nyrrylcadiz Love it!

JennyJones

@nyrrylcadiz This is lots of fun and I love the movement all the characters are showing. Only one small ( take it or leave it ) observation. When I look at the chicken girl, her legs look mor like a cat or a dog legs to me. It seems like she could have thinner legs and maybe some knobby knees. But really I love the piece and it will be a great one to show in your portfolio for sure.

chrisaakins

@MichaelaH because the coconut is below the horizon line her perspective is good. You would see exactly what she drew.

MichaelaH

@chrisaakins For me the horizontal line was at the feet of the dancing ducks, so I thought with the pizza principle - the cup would not have so big pizza but little bit more narrow pizza. But I am not a pro in perspective, so thanks.

KathrynAdebayo

As usual, I think your design looks phenomenal. You're going to have such a beautiful portfolio (though I think you already do).

Perhaps the piece could be strengthened by considering what else could tell the story you're aiming for. If I didn't read your description, I would have probably just considered it a dance party scene (with one dancer more serious than the others). What could invite the viewer to go deeper into the story?

Why isn't the duck the star? What's different about her that keeps her from getting attention? Is she not as good of a dancer? Is the chicken wearing a super flashy costume? Is there a spotlight on the chicken?

Anyway... just some brainstorming beginnings in case it's helpful.

Thank you for sharing!

MirkaH

I think it looks good, and then with color and value you can make the dancers pop out, and everything else meld together a bit, so its not too busy

Johanna Kim

@nyrrylcadiz Such a fun piece! And you've expertly incorporated so many different animals into your composition. I'm looking forward to seeing how you highlight the two main characters with color and value and lighting.

Nyrryl Cadiz

Hi, everyone! I’ve been working on this piece for a while. Below are my progress. This piece was really tricky. I struggled a lot to make my 2 dancers standout. I’m still not finished but. Hopefully i’m on the right direction. I’ll. get back to you guys tomorrow.

animatosoor

@nyrrylcadiz This looks really lovely, and already looks mostly finished. The values work really well on the foreground (the baby lamb and the other animals), which help frame the picture and lead our eyes to where the action is.

Though the background has muted colours and lighter values, I feel like the difference between those and those used on the two main characters is quite negligible. The values are still very close, so my eyes cannot focus entirely on the two main characters just yet. I'm wondering if the saturation on the background characters can be lowered a tad bit more so we could focus more easily on the main ones.

Gorgeous piece, though - the colours are so vibrant, and the characters are very fun to look at.

MichaelaH

I love it, it is so nice colorful illustration. I would desaturate(or make lighter in values) the tree and the left pair, more like the right side of the picture). I love the movement of the two characters, really nice...

evilrobot

NICE WORK!!!

Jon Anderson

@nyrrylcadiz This is a really lovely image but I want to echo a couple things others have already hit on. The two main characters are blending in a little too easily with the background. This may be fixed with a subtle value shift. Also, I can't see why the duck is grumpy other than the facial expression. Maybe adding more clues (maybe her dress is dirty or not as shiny, etc.) to show that there is tension between them instead of the duck just having a bad hair day. Your color choice and rendering is a pleasure to see. I'm looking forward to seeing the final.

Nyrryl Cadiz

@animatosoor @Jon-Anderson @MichaelaH @evilrobot thank you so much for the suggestions. Yes, I agree. The duck and the chicken girls are not standing out that much. I really need to fix that. I also need to add more details to emphasize my story.

I will be stepping away from this piece for a day or two though. I feel like my eyes are getting really tired looking at it that I can’t seem to notice things that are off. I hope after a couple of days I’ll have fresh eyes on the piece and continue working on it. Again, thank you so much everyone! ️

Jon Anderson

@nyrrylcadiz It's amazing the amount of good taking a break from a piece and coming back with fresh eyes can do. I have no doubt you'll find a good solution when you come back to it.