February Contest WIP: Would like another set of eyes on this :)
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Hey Gang, I've been chipping away at this illustration and felt I was at a point where I needed some more eyes on it. I'm sharing a good chunk of the work I've done on this one, but that's mainly to show where I came from. Where I'm really looking for feedback is on the color studies, unless something is jumping out.
Little backstory. I was working on some new concepts for this month's challenge along with this boxcar illustration, but the new concepts to me felt a little too close to some of my inspiration, maybe not in concept but in the look and feel and a little close in concept to one of the illustrations already posted for the challenge. I included them at the bottom because I still like the idea (thumbnails 41-48).
These are the early exploration. I tried out a number of different viewpoints and here I was trying to figure out my story. I wanted this to be about a young couple heading on their first adventure. One concept I played with was showing the different moments a person, couple, or group of people have at train stations. I really liked that idea, but I think I want this to be quieter and more about the one couple. This in some ways is a reflection of my own life right now, my fiance and I are about to start our own adventure, some of those feelings of excitement have been going through my head as I paint this and think narrative ideas. Looking back at this, #26 looks crazy and I kind of want to try exploring that one, too.
A few ideas for the window, here I'm trying to see what the clearest silhouette would be.
This is where I'm struggling, I think my values were getting too dark in #39, so I lightened them up in #40. I'm curious how people are responding to the last color study. How is that sky reading? I wanted to capture that moment right after the sun has set, nightfall sounds like the early part of the night. I just don't want that lighter part of sky to compete for attention. Is this going too dark still? And do people find this interesting?
Bonus sketches.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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Hi @Norman-Morana, great thumbnailing! My favorite is #42. Look forward to seeing your final submission!
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@Norman-Morana I really love the style of your paintings, they've got such a great quality to them. What are you using?
I almost don't know how to verbalize my response to the color studies, because I don't think the issue is that it's too dark... I think it's the way the train is framed. To show the focus on the couple with lots of activity around them, can you change it to horizontal to emphasize the potential movement of the train and add more of the adjacent cars? I also think that by having the windows and doorway light like that it gives more of a feel of an apartment. A train could have a more narrow feel by allowing the viewer to see the sky through the window on the other side. It doesn't have to be realistic, but it needs to feel less like a full room for each window. I think it would emphasize the couple to have the moon right outside their other window, and maybe they are the only ones that forgot to draw their curtains.
This is very random feedback, but I thought I would write it here just so that people will have something to disagree with. Maybe it will get people to write more
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@Jeremy-Ross Thank you!
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Thank you so much for your feedback, @carolinedrawing
The color studies are done in photoshop. I think I understand what you're saying. It's not a path I had thought about, but I think it's worth exploring and I'll try out some thumbnails to see if I can make a better piece.
