My first time posting and I learned to leave myself way more than the last day to finish coloring! Anyways, here it is!
A dragonfly landed on my car antennae once and I thought it would be cool to have him there all the time

I am starting to figure out my coloring process for the first book I'm illustrating this year. It's got a lot of "real" places depicted, but it's a fictional story, so I'm wrestling with the combination of reality and cartoonish fun

I'm illustrating a children's book and there's one spread where I can't seem to settle on a composition. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

A -

I really like this one although I'm worried that the angle doesn't have a clear-enough outline, requires fore-shortening (which is tricky to get right) and I'm not sure it conveys the height of her swinging. Plus, I felt like it could use something jumping in a puddle, so I added a grasshopper, but if I do that I feel obligated to repeat him elsewhere in the story, which isn't terrible, just a little extra work.

B-

I think this may flatten the image too much and negates the feeling of her swinging way up high. Perhaps if I made her bigger it would convey that better? With the ground in view I could add footprints that indicate she was running and jumping prior to swinging as well. What do you think?

C-

This one has clear outlines, but feels boring to me. Not very dynamic, but I guess not everything has to be. What do you say?

D-

I like this one, I didn't incorporate a grasshopper here, for this one I'm trying to emphasize the action of her having kicked the puddle on her way up in the swing, and making a big splash. I think her angle is a good combo of a strong silhouette and displaying her height. I don't know if I should have the background tilted though, as I'm doing that on the next page (see below) and I don't want them to seem repetitive.

Thank you so much for looking - I've been puzzling over this for 2 weeks now !

I think they all look pretty cool, but definitely share that backstory!

The clean up really helps! Really cute story

@lora_chaudavis Thanks for your feedback! Pudgy babies are my favorite, lol! It is definitely tricky trying to infuse enthusiasm into a piece I find boring...I think that may be why I may be reticent to choose the "straight" layout even though it has a strong silhouette and composition.

@neha-rawat Thank you for those pinterest links! I've been looking up a bunch of references, but photos and not illustrations ( I think I normally avoid those cause I don't want to copy anyone ) but seeing how other illustators interpret a similar scene is actually kinda helpful.

@arielg Thank you for that! You know, after all this I may consider that additional grasshopper character a little more...I like the idea of having a little sub-story depth in the illustrations.

Thank you all so much, this has been really helpful! I will post an update as soon as I have one

@celeste-elizabeth well, I am a freelance illustrator in Florida, so if you want to come hang out with me for a day, come on over

I would also say that the life of an illustrator is essentially isolated, especially if you work from home like I do. There's a fellow named Thomas James who talks about this and also did something quite impressive about it. He created his own community of illustrators to hang out with here, http://illustrationfriday.com/

Hope that helps, let me know when you want to swing by
Best,
Amber

Wow! I actually love everything about where this is going. I think the biggest thing throwing me off right now is the bird and the action ( the little dude trying to wrangle the stubborn dragonfly) is still a little too sketchy, I can't tell what the bird is standing on, and how is that dragonfly not noticing him right there about to eat him up? The colors definitely give me a woodsy vibe, and this definitely reads as a storytelling illustration.

So, perhaps turn off the color for now and dial in the rest of the drawing, and then go back in full force. You've got this!

@Gary-Wilkinson I love everything about it, great work

@Tiffany-Thomas said in Our SVS Virtual Studio APRIL 2021:

I think the vibrant colors in this are pretty fabulous

I really like the idea, I don't think you should ditch it by any means. This one you've got going is a little hard to read the face, but I think if you explore the topic with a number of iterations you'll absolutely find one that resonates and then can build off of that.

Final Answer: Keep going!

I love this can't wait to see how it develops!!

@Tiffany-Thomas said in Our SVS Virtual Studio APRIL 2021:

I think the vibrant colors in this are pretty fabulous

I am starting to figure out my coloring process for the first book I'm illustrating this year. It's got a lot of "real" places depicted, but it's a fictional story, so I'm wrestling with the combination of reality and cartoonish fun

@Braden-Hallett Sheesh! Pure genius

My first time posting and I learned to leave myself way more than the last day to finish coloring! Anyways, here it is!
A dragonfly landed on my car antennae once and I thought it would be cool to have him there all the time

@Gary-Wilkinson I love everything about it, great work

@jdubz Haha, this ones awesome. I want to join!

@Gabby-Correia Love how this came out especially that painterly sky and leaves! That giant dragonfly looks really believable

@ryleygarcia Awe! I love this one! The park & ride look spot-on, and that would totally be me getting dragged onto the dragonfly against my will