I learned a lesson on this one: Don't spend a week drawing fox studies for foxes that you're going to eliminate. Composition (story) comes first!

Thanks for doing these prompts and contests, guys! They really are testing my ideas and skills, and slowly, I'm building a process that has some consistency, even though the "medium" varies.

And I really hand it to all my fellow artists who came up with such creative takes on this prompt!

I just changed out my entry for a version with my name on it. I hope that's ok. It's exactly the same artwork but I keep forgetting to include my name!

Sometimes on those long car trips there was a bit too much togetherness. We did finally forgive one other, though .

Some types like to be alone. Others, not so much...

Autumn reflection

Just trying to produce more finished work so I can evaluate it and have it evaluated online. This is a waiter I saw in a (coffee) bar in a tiny mountain hamlet near Aosta, Italy. He looked fierce and eccentric and I thought he might make a good character. I am always torn, though, between whether to exaggerate for comic effect or whether to keep things relatively realistic.

I didn't have much time to be on the forums while I was taking the Backgrounds course, but now I'll try to start posting and commenting again ️.

The sole purpose of this piece was to see if I could finish something in a day, and to have fun. Yesterday I did have fun, and I thought I had finished it. But then it became evident that the legs were flipping (that is, you couldn't tell which one was in front and which in back). So today I spent most of the day redrawing it over and over until it worked, which was less fun. But I finished!

I'm very tempted to add a popsicle to that hand sticking out, but not today. Happy June!

Because it rains every day in November where I live, and even a little patch of color brings hope.

Thanks for inventing Slowvember, Lee!

I spent the last week doing a brick and mortar workshop at which we assembled a lot of traditional elements into a digital collage. Our assigned story was The Musicians of Bremen, and we had to choose an environment, so I choose the rural US in the early 20th century, probably because I had to choose quickly and it was so far away from where I really was.

I spent most of the week developing sketches of the characters, and I did a super quick storyboard, during which I was amused to realize that the donkey thought he was going to play the lute and told the dog to play the kettle drums, but it will never work because the donkey only has hooves! In my story, the donkey became a she, and the instruments changed as well, but during the process I got an image in my mind of when things are settled, they finally get to play, and the donkey is found out.

This JPEG loaded really green for some reason. It doesn't look that green on either my Cintiq nor on my computer monitor, so I don't know what to do about it! But the original has much more muted, almost taupe-ish greens throughout, including the donkey's skin and the drum.

I'm supposed to go see relatives the end of the week, but I really wanted to get this piece to a decent point first. I'm tired of not finishing things! I'll probably get to my relatives' house and realize I didn't pack any shoes or something...

This morning I cleaned up all my January contest "tracks in the snow" files before putting everything on an external hard drive. Honestly, I was shocked at how many changes my contest piece went through, and how late some of them happened. And yet, I think some of those last minute changes really helped.

So I thought I would write down some notes and share them with you guys. What you get out of them--or not-- will obviously depend on your needs at the moment. I'm especially working on trying to get stylistically consistent and solidify my process so I can increase productivity and up the quality of concepts and technique as well. And I would be interested in hearing how your processes work as well, because that's not something we talk about that often.

First, a huge thank you!!! Because you guys really gave great critiques, I used pretty much all of your ideas, and they made the final drawing so much better! I just hope I can eventually internalize them.

Secondly, for whatever reason, I had nine different iterations, as in photoshop files, of this piece from the time I chose my thumbnail to posting on the contest thread. I find this is about average. It would be nice if I could get the number down, but generally either I get confused by all the options or the file just gets too unwieldy and I lack the confidence to eliminate previous versions. Hmm...

A couple of things stayed pretty much the same from start to finish, and I kept them because they were fresh looking. One of them was the drawing of the dog. A lot of the drawing on the trees stayed the same as well, though I changed their positions.

In summary, what I learned so far:

-The boards really help!!!
-Always, always get the compositional problems worked out first!!!
-Flipping the piece horizontally helps. I have a tendency to develop a directional slant, and while I never eliminated it completely, flipping did help.
-I'm going to try something else in this style
-Reference really does help, as does working out drawing problems just after the thumbnail stage
-Making animal people is fun! I still prefer drawing realistic-ish children, but I'm also starting to loosen up a bit by trying all these different things.
-Perspective study really helps just after the thumbnail stage
-You really can produce something personally satisfying from a prompt that doesn't inspire you at first glance

If you want to see the contest threads, I think you can find two or three of them under my profile.

What have you been learning in the contests and in your recent WIPs? I'd be interested to hear!

I have chosen to illustrate a scene from the Beavers' home in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Narnia) for Slowvember. Eventually I want to do a sequence of three illustrations from the book, because it gives me a good opportunity to work on several aspects of illustration that I still need to demonstrate in my portfolio: character consistency, interior environments, and story development.

The meeting at the Beavers' home is intended as a full-page spread between text pages in a chapter book. The keywords for the home itself are: Rustic and cozy, but the overall keyword should be mission. This is the last cozy moment in the book for a long time!

If you know the Narnia stories, I've chosen the moment when Mr. Beaver gets so enthusiastic about Aslan that he bangs his fist on the table. (I need to refine his expression because he looks angry). Edmund (the smaller boy) doesn’t like what he’s hearing, so he’s starting to look towards the door. He will soon leave and betray his siblings to the Witch. (In one thumb, he is actually moving already.) This scene is a key moment in the book because this is when the children understand their mission, around which the rest of the plot unfolds, and also because of Edmund's betrayal.

So far I have done character design for the four children (I still need to do the Beavers and later the Witch), I have thoroughly researched every item that the book describes in the Beaver's home and coordinated all the action. But I couldn't get a clear mental image of their home until I did a floor plan and elevations. This may seem excessive, but I think it will help once I choose a camera angle and start drawing it all out in perspective. (I watched your entire perspective class this week, @davidhohn. It was very helpful!)

So, below are my thumbnail finalists (numbered by camera angle), and below those are the character designs, the floor plan with the camera angles marked out, and elevations. Here's what I'd like your help on with the thumbnails before moving into a more refined drawing by Monday, November 16:

1. Is the action clear? The focus should be on Mr. Beaver, or at least enough on him that the kids are plausibly distracted from Edmund. In some of the thumbs, I know I need to make him more prominent and dynamic. The idea of making him so excited was a process of evolution, so he's only standing up in the later ones.

2. The kids know Edmund is grumpy, but they don't know he is betraying them yet. Does the way I have portrayed him reveal too much? (I can play it down.) Is it distracting? In 5 he is already leaving and you only see his hand on the curtain.

3. Which camera angle suits the action best? That is the main thing I need to choose for now. Local values, expressions, and most everything else can change. Given the same angle, would you crop it differently, change something? I know I have gutter problems at times!

Thank you for your help, and I will keep posting updates as we move into week three!

Oh my goodness! I love these threads of yours. And your bears have such cute expressions. This is going to be fantastic!

@Kim-Rosenlof These are hard to do but fun to look at! Great job!

@Kim-Rosenlof Thank you! True story .

@JennyJones Thank you!

@deborah-Haagenson Thanks!

Sometimes on those long car trips there was a bit too much togetherness. We did finally forgive one other, though .

@Laurel-Aylesworth Is this enough face showing? I'm still playing around with the exact expression, but going for something a bit pouty.

I'm also still not quite satisfied with Susan's gesture and Mrs. Beaver's feet.

Oh, and also I tried two compositional options for getting the fireplace out of the gutter. In the first I moved the whole composition to the right, and in the second I moved only the fireplace. Preferences, anyone, as to the better the solution to the gutter problem? I think I prefer moving the whole composition, which surprises me somewhat.

@marek-halko What, get bored talking about art? But thank you. You are very kind.

@marek-halko What a lovely and detailed answer! Thank you for taking the time.

Here's another take using your critiques. After moving Mrs. Beaver to the far right, middle (winds up in the gutter) and having her do dishes (didn't solve the problem), I finally just moved her back a little bit and hid her in the shadows. I may do another lighter value take (it may feel too dark in mood right now to me), but I will "bleach out" the kettle. It's just there right now because the drawing is on top.

P.S. What I really liked about your take @marek-halko is the gradient bleed from behind the fireplace, but I'll have to go back and figure that out later. So much going on today!