I tried trying the sketchy inky look that is working for my mice in a comic book form, adding lots of texture and using a muted pallet. I like it. I like how it looks like a color pencil sketch on toned paper.

I got the legs wrong so I didn't finish them.

@Meta THat is a really cool graphic and very interesting. I would love assignments like this one too. I am a huge nerd and map fan. I will pore all day over a good map.

@Meta
Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed input. I know I didn't show all of my processes but I did research frankincense and myrrh. I chose frankincense oil instead of solids and believe it or not that is what myrrh looks like. It is a waxy resin. They sell them in these tiny little bottles and bags. I guess for children at Christmas. These are my mice from Inktober. I got a little bit of a following with them so I brought them back for Christmas, that is why the mice don't follow the traditional three kings exactly.

As far as the bottle goes. Yeah, I was drawing from memory and I should have used a reference.
Also, when I was trying to draw a straight line for some reason my pen went wonky and did this wavy line thing when I bore down. I saw that happened to someone else on the forum. I think it distracted me and I lost my groove on it. I worked on it a little more. Don't know if it is better or not.

I am trying to find a balance between whimsy and realism. I want my objects to look like they belong but not necessarily be rendered as realistically as possible. For example, I seriously doubt mice could carry anything the way these three are.

@Rachel-Horne I took your advice and my son's as well who said I needed to pump up the color a little bit on the bright spots. He thought it would make the muted colors even more muted. @robgale @robgale I also worked the ground a bit more ( I wasn't sure what patchy meant but I did my best!) Does it look better?

I think overall this is a success for me. I wanted a highly textured, whimsical, highly rendered line drawing with good gestures. I may have to be done for now. Still taking care of my son who just got out of the hospital (he had major surgery but is doing MUCH better) and I have several major assignments due for grad school plus and an Advent book to finish for my wife (who is my number one client).

@Fossi-Images I REALLY love your work. I love realism myself and trying to embrace it in a new way. I am entering into this field really late in life too (48) but my kids are grown. I wish you much success and hope to see more of your work!

@Braden-Hallett Thanks for the critique. I wish that I could go back and change things up and explore a bunch of different options, but with grad school, I may have to call it done or almost done. I like the rendering with the watercolor brush. I thought of going back in and doing some sort of texturizing as Lee does in his but I think it might compete with the inking. Who knows? Maybe if I can catch some more free time I can give it a try. I doubt it will make the sweet 16 for this month but I do like the progress I made on inking with digital. I am also impressed with how you pull all the quotes. I forget to do that. As far as the positioning of the mice I think the gestures of the mice are good enough to make the lack of silhouettes justified. I also like how the crown is silhouetted. But you are probably right, I just like the idea of the bag being too heavy for Inky to handle and it making him all topsy turvy .

Yet I am second guessing myself... Ahhhhhh. I may go back and explore other ideas. I draw pretty fast so maybe I can refine the idea some more.

@robgale I think 3 is by far your strongest composition and for me, it captures the essence of Macbeth. It has a really nice contrast with the values. In fact, I think that you could push your blacks more on some of the other pieces and they would read great as compositions. I especially like the hand print one but it needs some more contrast. Although I think the color of the red would totally fix it. These look great though and I look forward to see how they play out.

@robgale That is very helpful. I am not exactly sure what you mean about the shadows but I will work on them. I may try using a soft gray to add more texture. Yeah about the bag. I agree that it is the weakest part. More work on that too. I didn't want the texture of it to compete with Inky.
Thank you so much for your input!

I took your advice and watercolored it. Does that help?

First of all, I want to say how thankful I was to be included in the sweet 16 this month. First time ever! If I had to lose, I am glad it was to one of the winners that I really liked. I am even more thankful that @Lee-White AKA @AB and @Jake-Parker gave me a little critique in the end. They said I needed to not have the space so crammed and also to work on developing all the characters in the scene.

I also heard the critique of others about making sure you have good value and good silhouettes.
So I have been researching ideas this month and working on my style development as part of SLOWVEMBER. Therefore I decided to go back and explore the mice some more.

I wanted to explore the idea of a Christmas card so I came up with the idea of the three wise mice.

Questions:

1. Does it read well as the Three Wise Men (um er Mice)?
2. What areas do you see that I should fix or do more of?
3. Should I add muted watercolors or is it good as a stand-alone pic?
4. If this were a card would it catch your eye and would you buy it (NO I am not soliciting, just curious)
5. Does it look professional or amateurish? If it looks amateurish, what can I do to make it more polished?
6. How does it compare with my traditional? I did it all digitally with a new inking brush I really like.

@Braden-Hallett you deserved it! Great piece. Poor Billy.

@TessaW I thought so too about the bruising. I was trying a different technique than I normally use with color pencils. I layered in the values first with sepia and ultramarine but they made mud with the peaches and pinks. Lesson learned. I think if I do this again I will reserve my light values and not use the sepia and ultramarine to make my very lightest grey tones. Or maybe I need to improve my blending. The colorless blender dragged the pigment of the darker areas into the lighter ones and then I was stuck with it because you can't erase or undo color pencil.

I did really enjoy building up the layers. I am normally too impatient and try to go dark too soon.