My entry for the February contest. Tons of awesome submissions on here. Great job everyone!

If you add ship's rigging (which is a great idea, btw), be sure to add at least a hint of it to the other ships.

Yes, you can draw. Yes, you could get professional work. Though your more graphic style is currently working much better than your softer painted style.

BUT....if I was hiring and didn't have a need for a unicorn, I might question if you could draw anything else. Logically, your skill level tells me that you easily could, but then there's another darn unicorn. And another. And another. And another. And another.....and so on.

Cover your walls in unicorns if you must, but limit them in your portfolio. A different take (like the unicorn skeleton) was very unexpected and very cool. Seems like when you draw people you try and hide them under hats, armor, flowing hair, or turned away from us. They aren't drawn or attempted with the confidence that you are shameless in flexing with the unicorns. I see that and it makes me even more reluctant to hire you for my non-unicorn assignment.

Probably you don't draw people with the same confidence because you're spending too much time on unicorns. The human hands in the sketchbook are wonderful, but again hiding the rest of the person. What are you hiding from? I think that is the question you might need to ask yourself. Confront that question like an angry unicorn, my friend.

Keep up the good work though, you'll do great.

Nick, I like Jason's solution a lot! Here is just another way that I look at it. In my opinion your whole composition leans a bit to the right and sort of stays there. That may or may not have been what you were going for, however.

I circled some of the areas that I think might be issues.

1. Boy's head, top of bag and fence line are more, or less, at same height.
2. Cutting his legs off where you have initially made me wonder if this is a picnic table or blanket on the ground.
3. You have a dark value against a dark value.
4. Your brightest area of interest is all the way over to right.
5. Cast shadow on the table indicates direction of sunlight, but little else in the picture indicates the same light source.
   If the bite is on the right side of the apple away from the sunlight it would not be as bright as you have it and there would
   be highlights on the apple where the light source is hitting it which would pop it out from the fence value. The fence would not likely be as dark as you have it. There would be reflected light coming up off the grass and the side of the tree facing the sun. So determine where your light source is in the sky and everything else should fall into place.
6. The point of the apple's leaf follows the roofline of the house right up and out of the picture. The lonely branch does the same. I don't think the house is helping the scene at all. I would just lose it.

Here is a draw over suggestion. I think the boys head should probably come up over the line of the fence even though I didn't do that here.

I flopped the side that has the bite to center that area of interest and contrast it against the fence and removed the house. Also leaned the bag in the other direction. My only question now is that a bag of trash or leaves. Not clear from the picture. If it's leaves then let's stick a rake in there somewhere. If it is a trash bag then forget about the rake.

Maybe tighten up the composition so we cut off the right side of the apple and even add a bit of fence to the left. We probably want the boy to have more importance than the apple. Put some sunlight on the grass which except close to the fence.

Remember also that ants travel in a line. That can be a compositional element. Show one of the ants pulling himself up onto the table to convey that this is a table and not a blanket on the ground. Maybe put something else on the table to break up that checkerboard pattern and make it clear that it's a table and add some interest to the lower left. Could be an ant there that has broken off from the rest to explore the plate.

So those are just some quick thoughts. Take them for what they are worth. You have an excellent start here. I have not changed any of that and the way I would approach it is not necessarily the way you would. It's just revise, revise, revise until you get what you want. We all do the same thing. Jason had a great solution, as well! This should help you to maybe look at your own work with another pair of ideas and come up with an even better solution! Nice job.

Not bad! I like the car on the left particularly. I think you can help yourself by figuring out the perspective using boxes first. Sort of like drawing the crates that contain the car and then opening the crates to reveal the car.

It kinda looks like you might have free-handed the perspective (the lines to the vanishing points are straight-ish, but not straight), which is okay, but it takes practice and can create oddities if you aren't careful. It's also very hard to freehand curved surfaces in perspective. For instance in the car on the left, the right headlight is larger and rounder than the one on the left which is technically closer to us.

If you create the box "crates" for the cars first you would end up with something like this:

I freehanded these using your drawing so I'm not confident about the location of the vanishing points, but it will do for explanation.

Of course these are boring boxy cars, but you can now use them as a framework to create your cars from (curves and all) and feel more confident that they won't get too wonky. You can also figure out the mid-point of each plane by making an "X" corner to corner. I used the magenta line to cut the car in half by drawing lines through the center of the X's.

I also used additional X's to figure out the location of the headlights. To keep them the same size I draw the circle for the headlight on the left and then draw perspective lines towards the right vanishing point and put the 2nd headlight in between those two lines. Again, very mechanical looking, but we are just using these lines as guides for the real drawing. Figure out the tires the same way. Draw the closest tire to you and then extend perspective lines to figure out the size of the rear one.

Once you draw your car using these crates as guides, you can then erase the guides (or delete that layer if working digitally) and your cool car will remain and will feel more correct.

But style-wise, I like your car a lot! And if your drawing style in general would look too rigid with proper perspective then freehand away! Sometimes perspective can kill the feel of certain styles. At least mechanical perspectives.

Really lovely drawing, Melissa!

I think I would try having her already standing up at the window with her hands and left cheek against the glass (so we can see her expression) soaking up the moment. If she is blind (?) then showing her with her cheek against the glass ignoring the interesting scene outside would help communicate that. Currently her figure is communicating that she is a child who can see and wants to look out the window.

It's possible the right side of the image is taking away from what you are trying to convey. Or might just be her pose. I would at least try maybe cutting if off at the pillows.

I'm excited to see where you go with this, though.

@Marsha-Kay-Ottum-Owen Ha! That's funny what your painter friend said. Love it. I tend to think anybody can do it, I just think it gets in the way of some people's creative flow. But, I think as long as there's a solid understanding of the basics and your style is not dependent on correct perspective then you can make it work just fine. The old "you have to know the rules before you can break the rules" kind of thing. Sometimes intentionally breaking or distorting "the rules" leads to more interesting results.

I really like this! Colors work well together, but the orange of the car is not behaving quite the same as the other objects are to that strong light source behind it. I agree the front of the car is probably the issue. It is too bright. The biggest problem, though, is that snake. Looks like he's eating the bear and the bear is reacting to that instead of scaring the boy. Might be better if the snake's head crossed a part of the track rail? Something to make it appear more threatening and add depth.

@juliepeelart if it is a full grown horse it looks maybe a little too small, but maybe it's a young horse. Where the tail meets the behind might be a little high. Think about maybe doing something with one of those front legs. 4 straight legs is less interesting.

If the girl and horse are having a bonding moment(?), then perhaps it should be facing her and she's putting her hand on his nose. Or maybe she's hugging it and we see her cheek pressed up against it's chest. I guess I'm saying make the relationship between the two more clear.

I love, love the color and overall atmosphere you have going on. That tree by the lake is absolutely gorgeous. Well done on the girl, as well. But I'm not sure what to make of the castle in the distance. Is that where she lives? It doesn't look friendly and I think it is hurting your composition by way of being so dark and stark looking especially compared that wonderful tree. Add to it the horse looking off to the viewers right and I'm kind of confused as to what's going on. Or maybe nothing is going on. I can't tell.

If the castle is benign I would knock it back by reducing detail and contrast and lighten those dark purples in the far left corner sky. The clouds in the middle left sky are pretty and interesting, however, and work pretty well with the tree. Maybe could use less contrast, but I don't know if you should mess with it and risk overworking that section. If it's an unfriendly place I would still knock back so it isn't commanding so much attention. I find my eye lingering on it and wondering what is going on back there.

If you add ship's rigging (which is a great idea, btw), be sure to add at least a hint of it to the other ships.

@Marsha-Kay-Ottum-Owen you're not far off. I hope you don't mind that I took another stab at it. Take a look at this. I've highlighted your headlight shapes and hood contours. Sometimes you can stare at something for hours and not see it. Happens to me all the time.

I think you reduced the right front wheel well too much and the rear tire is not resting on the same plane as the front tire. I also adjusted the position of the front bumper. There was too much bumper on left and not enough on the right.

One other thing I noticed is that back line of the car creates a tangent with the rear wheel well where they sort of merge into one uninteresting contour line. You could either lengthen the car the slightly (as I did) and add a back bumper or shorten it a smidge. Shortening it actually might be better as it would allow the wheel well to jut out a little at the back of the car giving it a more interesting back end.

Everything else seemed to be aligning pretty well especially given the style. So great job!

@Marsha-Kay-Ottum-Owen Ha! That's funny what your painter friend said. Love it. I tend to think anybody can do it, I just think it gets in the way of some people's creative flow. But, I think as long as there's a solid understanding of the basics and your style is not dependent on correct perspective then you can make it work just fine. The old "you have to know the rules before you can break the rules" kind of thing. Sometimes intentionally breaking or distorting "the rules" leads to more interesting results.

Not bad! I like the car on the left particularly. I think you can help yourself by figuring out the perspective using boxes first. Sort of like drawing the crates that contain the car and then opening the crates to reveal the car.

It kinda looks like you might have free-handed the perspective (the lines to the vanishing points are straight-ish, but not straight), which is okay, but it takes practice and can create oddities if you aren't careful. It's also very hard to freehand curved surfaces in perspective. For instance in the car on the left, the right headlight is larger and rounder than the one on the left which is technically closer to us.

If you create the box "crates" for the cars first you would end up with something like this:

I freehanded these using your drawing so I'm not confident about the location of the vanishing points, but it will do for explanation.

Of course these are boring boxy cars, but you can now use them as a framework to create your cars from (curves and all) and feel more confident that they won't get too wonky. You can also figure out the mid-point of each plane by making an "X" corner to corner. I used the magenta line to cut the car in half by drawing lines through the center of the X's.

I also used additional X's to figure out the location of the headlights. To keep them the same size I draw the circle for the headlight on the left and then draw perspective lines towards the right vanishing point and put the 2nd headlight in between those two lines. Again, very mechanical looking, but we are just using these lines as guides for the real drawing. Figure out the tires the same way. Draw the closest tire to you and then extend perspective lines to figure out the size of the rear one.

Once you draw your car using these crates as guides, you can then erase the guides (or delete that layer if working digitally) and your cool car will remain and will feel more correct.

But style-wise, I like your car a lot! And if your drawing style in general would look too rigid with proper perspective then freehand away! Sometimes perspective can kill the feel of certain styles. At least mechanical perspectives.

Cool image! I like the character. I would only say that the skeleton has a lot of suggested dimension to it, but the character does not. He is rather flat. With ears that large shouldn't there be some indication of the other ear? Also might be nice to get some separation between the fingers by giving the hand had a more expressive pose like it was really exploring the surfaces of the skull.

April, I really like the way you are going on this. I did a draw over to show you some of my thoughts. Hope you don't mind.

I like the diagonal you have with her body and arm leading down to the goblet. I think lengthening her tail and curving will help. Also give her hair some more shape. The shoulder anatomy is a bit wonky. I think her fingers should break the curved plane of that foreground glowing coral(?). That coral is a great opportunity for a secondary light source. But I'd go with pink/purple glow as a contrast to the blue background glow.

You colored the goblet how it might appear in a room on land so it looks out of place in this beautiful dark, glowy world you've created. Gold does have a local color, but as a reflective surface it would also reflect it's environment. The closer it is to you the more you would see the gold with highlights from the lights and darks surrounding it.

The blue background light can also be an opportunity for some rim lighting where her head and arms cross in front of it.

Maybe add some more seaweed across the bottom. Again breaking the curved plane of that coral.

It's looking great! Really not at all far off from where I think you want it to be.

I

Really lovely drawing, Melissa!

I think I would try having her already standing up at the window with her hands and left cheek against the glass (so we can see her expression) soaking up the moment. If she is blind (?) then showing her with her cheek against the glass ignoring the interesting scene outside would help communicate that. Currently her figure is communicating that she is a child who can see and wants to look out the window.

It's possible the right side of the image is taking away from what you are trying to convey. Or might just be her pose. I would at least try maybe cutting if off at the pillows.

I'm excited to see where you go with this, though.

Nick, I like Jason's solution a lot! Here is just another way that I look at it. In my opinion your whole composition leans a bit to the right and sort of stays there. That may or may not have been what you were going for, however.

I circled some of the areas that I think might be issues.

1. Boy's head, top of bag and fence line are more, or less, at same height.
2. Cutting his legs off where you have initially made me wonder if this is a picnic table or blanket on the ground.
3. You have a dark value against a dark value.
4. Your brightest area of interest is all the way over to right.
5. Cast shadow on the table indicates direction of sunlight, but little else in the picture indicates the same light source.
   If the bite is on the right side of the apple away from the sunlight it would not be as bright as you have it and there would
   be highlights on the apple where the light source is hitting it which would pop it out from the fence value. The fence would not likely be as dark as you have it. There would be reflected light coming up off the grass and the side of the tree facing the sun. So determine where your light source is in the sky and everything else should fall into place.
6. The point of the apple's leaf follows the roofline of the house right up and out of the picture. The lonely branch does the same. I don't think the house is helping the scene at all. I would just lose it.

Here is a draw over suggestion. I think the boys head should probably come up over the line of the fence even though I didn't do that here.

I flopped the side that has the bite to center that area of interest and contrast it against the fence and removed the house. Also leaned the bag in the other direction. My only question now is that a bag of trash or leaves. Not clear from the picture. If it's leaves then let's stick a rake in there somewhere. If it is a trash bag then forget about the rake.

Maybe tighten up the composition so we cut off the right side of the apple and even add a bit of fence to the left. We probably want the boy to have more importance than the apple. Put some sunlight on the grass which except close to the fence.

Remember also that ants travel in a line. That can be a compositional element. Show one of the ants pulling himself up onto the table to convey that this is a table and not a blanket on the ground. Maybe put something else on the table to break up that checkerboard pattern and make it clear that it's a table and add some interest to the lower left. Could be an ant there that has broken off from the rest to explore the plate.

So those are just some quick thoughts. Take them for what they are worth. You have an excellent start here. I have not changed any of that and the way I would approach it is not necessarily the way you would. It's just revise, revise, revise until you get what you want. We all do the same thing. Jason had a great solution, as well! This should help you to maybe look at your own work with another pair of ideas and come up with an even better solution! Nice job.

Very nice, Rifat! I would not have guessed you were self-taught. Looks very professional. You should be proud.

A couple things I will say. Keep in mind these look great and you should not feel the comments mean the illustrations are unsuccessful. They are colorful, sweet, and well-composed.

The lizard on the cover and the one on the inside spread are two very different sizes. It looks this way because the light bulb appears to be the same size in each picture. The lizard on the inside spread does not look like he is illuminated by the light bulb despite being so close to it. That is a strong light source. The cast shadow on the lizard on the cover is not quite correct, but it's believable enough for this style. I think making the lizard on the inside about half as big and giving him a bit of highlight and a cast shadow from the light would help. Doesn't have to be a lot, I don't think, because of the style you are working in. But that light bulb is so bright that it almost demands some kind of light effect on the lizard.
Oh, and why are there foot prints in front of him on the inside spread where he has not yet been?

2nd point is that the paper on the floor in the ant spread and the tile floor have two different perspectives going on. The tiles in the upper left of the spread are irregular and elongated, too. If the perspective is done correctly they should all appear to be square tiles (assuming you were going for square tiles). The perspective on the pad of paper is too much. Yes, an object appears to get smaller as it recedes into the distance, but this effect on a small object like a pad of paper on the floor in front of us would barely be noticeable at all from the angle we are seeing in your picture. This will happen if your vanishing point is too close to the picture plane. It also appears to angle down into the tiles instead of laying on top of them.

But still very successful and adorable images. Those are very small, picky points just to be aware of. There is not a kid in the world who would care about anything of what I said. Well done!