Homeage to my Dad. Thanks to him, I have climbed up more mountains in my life than I'd be able to remember to count, and got lost miles from the correct turn in the trail many more times still. Back in the early 2000s when GPS systems weren't as advanced and convenient as they are now, and the loss of signal and misread of the map would lead to the occasional hickup.

So many amazing entries this month!
I finished this a week or so ago, so I thought I best post before I forget.

Here is my submissiiiooon!

I too haven't had much time to take slowvember really slow this month, but I am still happy to say I spend a fair bit more time developing and working this one out. I needed bookcover examples for my portfolio, and this is gonna be one of them!
Hope you like it. Lots of great work this month!

Here's mine! Struggled to come up with a concept for this one, and didn't have a lot of time in the end, but here we are! I'm still pleased with the image at least from a render standpoint I guess.

It took me forever to finally compose an image i was somewhat happy with for this month! Phew! But it's done and I'm happy I could hand in something.

I'm doing mine in bulks because I often don't have time for several days in a row! I'm also not following the prompts but inking cute halloween animals every day. My goal here is to create cute animal examples for my portfolio and mostly to just manage to finish 31 drawings consistently! So I hoped to pick an achievable theme.

These are my first batch!

Besides a few fantasy commissions, I am slowly struggling my way through this illustration this month:

Hey guys!
Everyone's pieces are looking really promising, I look forward to seeing them all.

It's pretty late for me to ask for feedback as this is pretty much finished, but I still wanted to post it to get a general opinion whilst there's still some time to rework minor or even major bits or even rethink the concept.

Here's what I came up with!

I'd love to hear what you think

Thanks!

Hey!

Only things I noticed is that my browser can't load your logo, potentially.

...Both at the top and bottom of the page!

I also wonder if it's worth including a call to action with your email on the main illustration page, or separate out a clear contact page..I can see why you didn't, because ultimately it would be very brief with the information just repeated, but I believe it's good form to have a very clear link to contact information on first glance.

Hey! The overall colours, composition and character expressions are really cool, so I think it's a solid piece!

A few areas for potential improvement for me could include:

• Maybe take a look at the tangents on the characters - the girl's right hand blends into the boy's hat and it took me a moment to really see it. Her neck also seems quite long, since we're looking down at them slightly. Anatomically, she seems a little less appealing than the other two.

The hair of the boy at the front also curves quite directly into the dress, although not as noticeably - that's another tangent to maybe clear up a little bit so the character don't blend together.

• I wonder if the composition could benefit from a bit more breathing room, giving the painting a bit more of a feel of freedom and flying. The dragon feels very squished into the image in the lower right corner. If the dragon was a bit smaller you could have more clouds for "movement room", but you could even let the landscape beneath shine through the clouds to add more story. Just an idea!

• The face of the dragon looks a little bit off.. I think it might be because the eyes and forehead make it look like we're looking down onto the dragon's head, but the snout on its own look like a profile-shot. As a result the mouth-eye connection looks a little odd. If I cover his right eye with my finger, I already feel better about the dragon's face!

Hope some of this helps!

It's on the way to being a really lovely image!

That's really cool, I love this new version. Really amazing how the title is incorporated!

Adding to the feedback above, I'm personally a bit unsure about the scale in this image! It's cool to have this massive cat and fish, but in comparison to all this, the tree looks really small compared to the girl as well.

I'm not sure if the intention was to have it look like the tree is in the distance (hence small compared to the girl) , but if so, It's not reading very clearly to me. Part of that is that it looks like we're looking down on the cat slightly, as if the tree was below our eye level, when the girl is roughly AT our eye level, if that makes sense.

Love the textures and the rendering on the branches and bark!

I really love how you did the author credit on this one, that feels like amazing typography work that's really nicely built into the image!

But I'm not sure about the vertical title.

I find those pretty hard to read at a quick glance, which might already be enough to turn some people away. The cover looks super cool, but I think that's a risk, and I'm not sure it's worth taking.

Or if you are into it, I'd say the "The" is currently drawing all my attention text wise because my brain can interpret it immediately, and then it doesn't smoothly connect to the rest of the title (And I already know what the title is from previous versions!)

Hey! I think these backgrounds are quite nice and work very decently. The only thing that bothered me about the cart image, perhaps, is that the bubbles don't really form any shape to lead the eye. I think they could have been used more purposefully to make an interesting shape!

Whilst I don't think your backgrounds are an issue in the two images you've posted, I do think not "afterthinking" would be a good approach. You posting about this has made me realize that for a few years now, I've not really thought about the background as a 'background' anymore. Ever since I started thumbnailing and planning out whole images, I no longer draw elements separately - the background is as significant as the foreground is, and they must ideally work together. A cloud, a branch, a path can all help lead the eye and has its purpose.

Bottom line is that I think both of your examples look great! I'd have a hard time pointing out anything to criticize, and I don't think the focus is off, either. If you were to also use colour, you could easily draw more attention to the most important element with light or colour, too.

But if you yourself think that backgrounds aren't part of your process, I guess I'd recommend doing some thumbnailing exercises where the background as well as the main element are just shapes and tones that need to balance each other out! That way when you fill in those shapes with actual background elements, they can support your overall image structure.

Hi! Melissa covered most of it really, I'd agree with all that advise. Overall there are a few pieces I think you could get away with taking out of your main section. I really love your recent Yeti work, as these portray consistent colours and a really lovely soft style as well. Of course that doesn't have to be what you want to go for, but I think its some of your strongest work. Personally I found that the last image with the trolls put me off a little.

On another note, I noticed that when you click away from illustration on your website and then return to it, you have to click into a folder "Illustrations 2019" to access it again. I think that's a poor move because the general rule should be as few clicks as possible for people to find what they're looking for. SInce it's only one folder, it's also superfluous to have that differentiation. I think your main illustration page should definitly be less of an archive and more of a curated portfolio where old pieces just don't get shown anymore if they don't suit your current style and skill level.

@Melissa-Bailey-0 Thank you! I appreciate that a lot, and that's sound advise. Strongest first and last. I guess I'm having a hard time deciding I was thinking of getting rid of the robot and flower, for one, although I guess an art director had complimented me on that one before.

@Jeremiahbrown Thanks Jeremiah! I'm super glad the work looks alright overall, and I'll take a look at moving some pieces up! Great insight.

This is SO COOL! Definitly a worthy 50-piece challenge. I appreciate that at this stage much change wouldn't be possible anyway, and really, I couldn't think of much feedback looking at this.

The only thing I'd consider is perhaps pushing the values a bit moe to create some depth. It looks like the table with the cauldron is in front of the book case, but the values blend right in with the rest. Maybe these can be darkened with a multiply layer to give a sense of "foreground". I'd wonder the same about the character and the ladder. Perhaps some darkening or lightening there could make them stand out a bit more. You might be able to push the light thrown by the lamp right beside them and create a deeper shadow.