This is great! I started to sign up yesterday and I realized I wanted to produce a couple more pieces first. So I'll be on the lookout for the next go round!

Thank you! These are all good ideas! The fact that everyone wondered about the fox's smile lets me know that it's distracting. I will think about your suggestions in my bronchitis induced stupor and we'll see what I can get done by next week! I'll definitely try a texture on the snow, @Suji-Park.

I agree with the others. Do a quick value study and that should organize it a bit. It's a crowd scene, so of course the line work is busy, but you can do a lot to simplify it with light and value. The final will be a lot more coherent.

My eye goes right to that fantastic fish sitting at the counter! That is close to the cash register, too, so I agree with @Zachary-Drenski.

Your perspective on the balcony and in the signs is looking slightly wonky, but I'm sure you'll figure it out as your refine.

For color I might start with a multiply layer over everything in one tone, to unify it, and then try different local colors. But I do think it's really important not to use too many, or to have a lot of saturated colors, in a crowd scene like this. Maybe look at Zootopia stills!

I love the drawing and all the characters you have here. The more I look, the more I see. Just noticed that the anteater is sipping with his..umm, nose?

Thought it was time to do an update and ask for a critique before the final push on this piece. I'm posting last week's color study and then this week's progress below it.

What I have done during the last week (besides struggling and then getting a cold) is tighten and smooth up all the drawing and color layers, and then decide I didn't like them nearly as much as the quick study! So then I went back and moved over each original layer to the new document, modifying it only the minimum amount needed, in order to retain the same "stone lithography" effect but not leave anything in the drawing so messy that you truly can't tell what's going on.

I also kept redrawing the fox kneeling behind the tree, finally turning it into a female. I rather like her gesture now, but I'm wondering about her size and how firmly she is planted on the ground.

Also, this "lithography" technique, which I am inventing as I go along, sometimes looks quite grainy close up. Do you think that's a problem? I'm also still experimenting with how heavy to leave the outlines, etc.

And is the bright moonlight behind Will distracting or does it work?

Thank you!

Last week's post:

This week's:

@Kevin-Longueil I think you could do it either with more branches on the tree separating them, or with lighting. But I rather like this piece without much lighting (the style seems so nice and textured, almost like a woodcut), so I tend to prefer the tree idea.

I also agree with @demotlj!

Hi! I do think it has gotten a lot better, especially the boy's face! And the sparkly texture on the snowflake is very nice, too.

I think maybe I'm partly describing what @chrisaakins called airbrushiness. Airbrushiness is usually not caused only by the brush used but also by not being sure where the shadow delineations should fall. Like you said, good reference or a model would probably help a lot. I know it's getting late in the month to start over (I have a cold now and am staring at my own piece ineffectively), but it's all a learning process. And I still think the piece has such a nice theme and atmosphere!

@KathrynAdebayo I wish I had time to just paint what I am talking about, but I've got some distractions at home. Instead, I'll post this video here that I hope will explain it well enough. I think you could simplify even more! Also, forcing yourself to use a larger (and more definite) brush in the beginning stages helps. That's what they always told us to do in portrait painting classes. It forces you to define the shapes within the larger shape. Again, Sargent is a master of this.

As for the snowflake, I think you could take it even further both with the deepening of the color and with the bending! After all, the light source is coming from behind!

And I understand what you said about style, because I am still trying out a lot of styles and media as well, and at times it makes each piece feel like reinventing the wheel!

I took your suggestion, @KaraDaniel, and added some text. I also refined the background characters a little and moved a tree to work on the spatial effect some more before getting into the final version.

1. Does it work?
2. Are there too many brown spots/characters in the background? See version below with fewer foxes. Thoughts?

Thank you!

I like these! Are they all flower footprints?

Something about F2 appeals to me as well. You can see a lot of things and the distance from the viewer is nice. My only question is why he is going slowly enough to see the prints. One misses a lot of things from the car. But if you can convey that part of it, go for it!

I kind of like A as well, though there's a lot of blank wall space. I might move Will up a tad and make that a bodega on the corner. But it gives the idea that he might turn the corner and find the cause for the prints walking down the street. Also, the contrast of flowers with city would be nice.

And G is nice, but totally different. It reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes somehow.

@KathrynAdebayo I love the idea, love the warmth of the colors (you really researched this piece well!) and I do like the constrasting cool colors in the clothes. I love the boy's tender profile and gesture. I also really like the pattern you added to the pajamas!

I don't know if this advice will be too out of the blue or whether it will be right for your style (I've seen some of your work but don't have a good feeling for the whole yet), but I noticed that the boy's profile, especially, lost something when you started to paint in the details. If I had to say, it's that there is a lot of contrast in the values in the figures' faces and limbs, especially in the reflected light. The result is that they lack some the unity that they would have otherwise.

An easy way to try out a change would be to put in some kind of fill layer over all the skin and then take town the opacity or change the layer mode to see if you like the effect. (Or if you still have the underpainting, you could make the layers of paint on top more transparent so you can see the underpainting.)

Also, the snowflake is gorgeous (I just now noticed the track motif!), and it is the center of the painting and therefore some sharpness and contrast are warranted. And I suspect that you're still going to take down the value a lot. But there is something of the gorgeous softness of the snowflake in the 3rd color study that it would be a pity to loose. Also, I really suspect that a paper snowflake that large would bend a bit more. Not as much as a lace tablecloth, but it wouldn't be flat either.

I hope it doesn't feel like I'm picking your illustration apart. In fact, I really relate to it, and the former portrait painter in me especially relates to the warm realism of it. I think for that reason I can hear my former portraiture teachers' voices in my head and am passing on the same advice they used to give me, especially about subordinating the details to the whole. Portraiture has some specific rules that don't apply to all illustration styles, so if you like that kind of painting, it's worth a Google search! (And yes, Sargent is one of the great masters!)