Here is my entry. The story about a boy who sets out to hire heroes to save his town, only to realize that he must take matters into his own hands.

Hello!

I've been enjoying the courses on this site for a couple of weeks so I figured I would present myself and see if the forums is something for me as well. My name is Morten and I live in Denmark where my day job has nothing at all to do with art - unless you call software development an art (which I guess you could ).

I've always liked the idea of being good at drawing but it never really got anywhere. I tend to lack patience for the part of learning a new thing where you're not very good at it, which turns out to be a bit of a show stopper. However, last summer I figured I would give it a serious go and see where it would lead me. I've had the opportunity to have a day off from work each week for the past 15 weeks, which has helped a bunch.

Apart from an evening course in classical drawing, I've been completely self tought - mostly from watching youtube videos. The amount of great resources freely available has been staggering to say the least but this has also lead me to jump around between all the different options, never settling on one approach or direction. I followed the draw-a-box course for a while but it felt a bit too time intensive for the limited amount of free time that I've had available. So far SVS has provided a great way to structure my learning and I think it works better than combining a disparate collection of videos and tutorials into a study plan.

While it seems to be a primary focus for this site I'm not particularly into children's book art - but then again, I'm still quite new at all this art stuff so who knows which direction I'll end up taking. Either way, this place seems to have lots to offer.

I'm looking forward to checking out all the great art in here and maybe get in on some of the competitions as well.

I'll leave you with the closest to a children's book drawing I've made so far If you'd like to see more, you can find my instagram account at @mortenchristiansenart and my DeviantArt account here.

I've been here for a couple of months, so its time to participate in the first contest. As someone who is learning to draw in my free time, I haven't had to properly design a character before. I've mostly avoided anything to do with drawing people - there are just so many challenges to tackle all at once!

I think a contest like this is just what I need to get out of my comfort zone and get my hands dirty. Most of my available time this month just went on getting experience drawing poses and figures, but I've actually had a lot of fun the last few drawing nights, seeing the character "coming to life".

I've arrived at a character design and concept that I'll be moving forward with, where a boy sets out to hire some heroes only to find that no one will help. Undeterred, he resolves to take matters into his own hands. You can see the general idea for each pose below, in chronological order. What do you think, how well does the narrative read?

@TheArtBard
I like the improvements you've made so far.

You mentioned that you didn't like the face on the guy to the right, so maybe you still have a plan to change it. Regardless, with your most recent change, I feel that the face does not fit with his gesture. The pointing hand indicates surprise but the face is too passive to match it. Maybe a slightly open mouth would do the trick.

There are a couple of things that do not read well for me.

Firstly, I was surprised when you mentioned hills since I had totally read those as waves or a way to create depth in the water/ocean. Looking again I can see the trees but I guess I had just considered that "texture". I'm not sure how best to fix it - maybe change the color ever so slightly away from the color of the water or maybe add some trees at the top to clarify the silhouette of the hills.

I'm not sure whether the tentacle on the left is touching the edge of the boat or not. The position seems to indicate that it does, but the shadows (or rather lack of shadows) indicates the opposite. If the tentacle is supposed to touch the boat, maybe make it go slightly into the boat. If the front edge of the boat hides a bit of the tentacle then it becomes clear how close it is to the viewer. This could further be established by adding a bit of shadow on the boat edge near the tentacle. If the tentacle is not touching the boat, on the other hand, you may want to raise it slightly up to clearly separate it from the boat edge.

The last thing is the ice on the water. I'm not 100% sure if it is ice or not. I would guess that most of the water is covered by ice and show, since the front tentacle seems to come up through a crack. However, the edge between the ice and the water is very soft, causing me to doubt the conclusion. The small white clumps of snow/ice on the far side of the boat are separated from the general surface in a harder fashion which seems strange if they are both supposed to be snow/ice. I hope it makes sense - its a bit hard to explain. If not, I can draw over you image to clarify.

@Niels Do you think this helps to sell the narrative from the first image? Dark clouds gather over his town, with a menacing grasping hand. I hope it conveys that his home is under threat and he is racing out to do something about it. I could also slap a "Reward" label on the money bag to clarify its purpose.

Exploring colors and rendering style. Oh boy was it hard to capture the expression of the original sketch. I couldn't really escape a slightly creepy expression. Maybe I should try for line art instead.

@Casual-T Cool concept. A couple of random thoughts that struck me:

• A bit of liquid could seep out where the cord attaches to illustrate the nutrient aspect.
• The wood part has clearly been created with a tool. Depending on the story background for this it could make more sense for the wood to be processed by the teeth of the mouse, thus being more raw.
• The perspective of the wire does not seem to align with the perspective of the wooden stand. I think the 'S' curve at the right should be flattened a bit vertically for it to fit.

@CLCanadyArts Thanks, I'm glad you like it. Since the poses are chronological I had to find a way to ensure that the viewer doesn't mix up the ordering.

Hi. None of them seem to take advantage of the subject matter. Do you have any thoughts on how you would like to use the yeti theme? For example, what does a yeti eat that normal people do not? How is a yeti kitchen different from a normal kitchen? And maybe consider some sort of story element - something happening more than just the yeti hanging out cooking. I think it would help your thumbnails if you have some specific things which you want to communicate. Then you could look at how well the thumbs help with that and the general mood you want to establish.

@TheArtBard
Sorry about the face I think it works better now. The direction of the brows communicate anger more than surprise to me though. I'm not sure thats what you intended. Unless you want the person to be yelling at the tentacle. In that case, you nailed it

@CLCanadyArts Thanks, I'm glad you like it. Since the poses are chronological I had to find a way to ensure that the viewer doesn't mix up the ordering.

Here is my entry. The story about a boy who sets out to hire heroes to save his town, only to realize that he must take matters into his own hands.

And here is the line art. Not sure what to go with yet

Exploring colors and rendering style. Oh boy was it hard to capture the expression of the original sketch. I couldn't really escape a slightly creepy expression. Maybe I should try for line art instead.

@Niels Do you think this helps to sell the narrative from the first image? Dark clouds gather over his town, with a menacing grasping hand. I hope it conveys that his home is under threat and he is racing out to do something about it. I could also slap a "Reward" label on the money bag to clarify its purpose.

@Niels Good point about him looking up in picture 2. An extra pose would go beyond the parameters of the competition, so I guess that is out of the question. I'm not sure how rigid the interpretation of the prompt is, though. I do agree that you probably need to see the last 3 images before you really understand the first two. I can't think of any way to communicate more clearly what he is doing. I could add a couple of arrows sticking out of his backpack, but I like that idea that he starts out excited about his task, not running for his life.

I've been here for a couple of months, so its time to participate in the first contest. As someone who is learning to draw in my free time, I haven't had to properly design a character before. I've mostly avoided anything to do with drawing people - there are just so many challenges to tackle all at once!

I think a contest like this is just what I need to get out of my comfort zone and get my hands dirty. Most of my available time this month just went on getting experience drawing poses and figures, but I've actually had a lot of fun the last few drawing nights, seeing the character "coming to life".

I've arrived at a character design and concept that I'll be moving forward with, where a boy sets out to hire some heroes only to find that no one will help. Undeterred, he resolves to take matters into his own hands. You can see the general idea for each pose below, in chronological order. What do you think, how well does the narrative read?

It seems slightly cramped space wise, since a lot of details touch the edge of the image in this last version. Is this intentional? I would try to add a bit of space at the top and bottom of the image - not much, just enough that the hooves, hat, wing and tail do not touch the edge.

Here is a couple of variant dancer placements including audience. As I'm posting this, however, I realize an issue that has been bothering me. The dancer is not in the same perspective as the rest of the image making her disconnect from the rest of the scene

@Niels @erinrew
The reason I changed the musicians to be sitting on chairs is actually based on feedback on how such events are performed in the real world, at least for Egyptian belly dancing. I know what you mean and it was some of the reason why I chose to initially make them sitting on the floor. I'm still not sure how I wan't to balance realism vs creative freedom, but I will keep it mind. A working drawing should trump a correct drawing.

I'm definitely aiming for a light hearted piece, so if it ends up feeling like the boy is ogling her I will have failed in achieving my goal. I have very little experience drawing people, so I don't know how well I will be able to hit the proper emotions to communicate the point, but maybe this is also the reason I have gravitated towards hiding some of the dancer. I suppose it is something of a pitfall to hide essential details because you as the illustrator have a clear understanding of the subject.

Thank you both for your comments. It's great to get feedback from someone unfamiliar with the subject. I'll consider sharing compositions without an explanation in the future, to get the raw impression of what others see.