Almost did not make it this month. It turns out this was a lot harder than I initially thought.

Looking at the other entries, maybe I should have included her name and a small bio?

Busy month with family and the whole Covid thing. Didn’t think I’d be able to work on it after my initial thumbnails, but made a sprint in the last days of the month.

Looking forward to the next contest!

Hi. It might be a bit rude, but I have been commenting a bit on the forums without introducing myself. So to remedy that; here I am!

While I have had an on-off relationship with ‘art’ since I was around nine I am trying to mindfully improve for the last two years. The Three Point Perspective podcast has been a motivator for this as the topic of artistic growth and learning has been touched upon in a number of episodes. Speaking of which, I’m not up-to-date yet as I mostly listen to the podcast during downtime around the house, which is something that comes and goes since I have a young family and fulltime job to keep me occupied.
A friend talked me into signing up for the SVS curriculum which we’ll do as soon as he gets his new house up and running. I understand that it’s main focus is on illustrating children books’ however I hope to learn a thing or two I can use in my own projects. While I really enjoy drawing, well, basically everything I hope to finish a comic one day, illustrate an article and create at least one lifelike portrait in oil. I enjoy reading fiction, historical non-fiction, comics, strips, long distance running, classical masters in oil, beer, wine, cooking and seem to have an eclectic taste in music*.

As you might notice from this post English is not my first language and I might have trouble expressing my thoughts correctly through this language barrier. On top of that dutch culture is very direct, bordering on blunt sometimes. So if one of my posts or critiques comes over as brusque or abrasive it 99,5% of the time won’t be ment that way and I would like to apologise in advance.

So hi!

*Going as far as enjoying Spanish, French, German and dutch rapmusic apparently. And if someone knows of good rappers in bahasa Indonesia, please let me know.

I like the idea! Looking at the picture from a smaller screen I would advise to play around with contrast/value more. The separate elements tend to fuse together in their current state. Really dig the colour palette though!

I really like the energy of the picture. One small thing that stood out to me though is the area where the lower jaw of the cat intersects with the tail of the rooster. I think there is a tangent line(?) which, to me, makes it feel like the cat has the tail of the rooster in his mouth as opposed to being in front of it. Just a little shift of the tail would remedy that.

Again really like the picture and I am still a novice so take my advice with a grain of salt.

I like the individual items in the picture, though the yeti does look a bit sad. Composition wise, would making the yeti a bit bigger work for you? That way it would push the yeti a bit more into the focus of the drawing, without having to drop the birds. Now my eye first noticed the left bird and the couldron/barbecue first.

@Asyas_illos @CLCanadyArts @Jacy13 @Tiffany-Thomas
Thank you all for your response! Funilly enough number three was my initial choice before exploring different colour options (did about ten in total). I’m now continueing to the colour stage. Thanks again for the help.

I will see if using I can get less saturated colours to work for me @Tiffany-Thomas. I’m slowely building experience in procreate, but it’s at a snails pace currently.

Hi! I have a hard time deciding but compositon wise I’m split between E and H.
I’m a sucker for classic compostion and I like the triangle shape created in E. The diagonal lines also create a bit of tension, I am assuming that the hand coming out of the snow and ‘pushing up tulips’ is a pun on the classic zombie hand rising from a grave right?
Picture H gives more room for the light effect and the falling snow though, which adds to the winter feeling. I am guessing the hand is in the lower right corner, but I would advise to move it to the middle left (position of the dark figure) to take advantage of the ‘rising through the snow’ part.

Thank you for making the slideshow. It provides a very nice way of viewing all the entries, there is so much skill on display!

B. Definitely B! The angle gives it a feeling of energy combined with the waves of scent.

Cool! I already wanted to get some practice in architecture. Just a question though; what is generally meant by a ‘3/4th angle’ in building design? Just a three point perspective view?

Almost did not make it this month. It turns out this was a lot harder than I initially thought.

Looking at the other entries, maybe I should have included her name and a small bio?

@Morten-Christiansen I think it could work, though I think the character needs a bit more wide-eyed-exitement look on his face to make it clear he isn’t fearfully running away.

And I think it’s better to stay away from small text on items, since they might not scale good enough. But I’m on unsteady ground there.

@Asyas_illos @CLCanadyArts @Jacy13 @Tiffany-Thomas
Thank you all for your response! Funilly enough number three was my initial choice before exploring different colour options (did about ten in total). I’m now continueing to the colour stage. Thanks again for the help.

I will see if using I can get less saturated colours to work for me @Tiffany-Thomas. I’m slowely building experience in procreate, but it’s at a snails pace currently.

@Morten-Christiansen Would it be fair to add a small background in the running pose? Than you could have him running to the adventurers guild/town/tavern. It would add a little more context.

I think the last three read very well narrative-wise. The first two work a bit less sequantially in my opinion. Maybe an extra pose would help? Regarding the second pose; the character is a boy. So it might be interesting exploring him looking up, signalling that he is trying to pay someone bigger/older than him.

I like it! Really interested in the other poses, and how he would go on an adventure.

One question though; how does the backpack in combination with the scythe work? The part on his shoulder suggests the backpack is smaller than currently drawn? Really like the idea of him bringing lunch in the form of worms.

Hi. I’m doing my best for this months contest, and see the entry more as a way to learn and get out of my comfort zone than as a real submission.

For this month I tried to do the following schedule;
-Create a character background. Where are they from? What do they like? Etc.
-A number of sketches of different outfits.
-Select an outfit, do the poses.
-Select a colour scheme by trying different combinations
-Colour in the five poses.
Should have roughly been a few days for step one, one-and-a-half week for creating the outfit and poses than two weeks for colouring. However life happened and my month became the last few days because of sick children.

I tried to follow the steps in a hastened pace but I’m stuck on colour selection and would greatly appreciate feedback if you are willing to give it. The colours are roughs, might tweak them a little bit. I am not really experienced with digital colouring and wanted to do something believable but stil colourful.

Re: character and dress choice:
About my character. Her name is Sri and is about 14 years old, as this story would be a coming of age story for children aged 10 to 16. She is an outgoing girl who lives in a small remote village nestled against a mountain. The village is mostly poor and relies on farming and small trades. Her parents are what you could call lower middle class. Not too poor, but not rich either. Both parents work and she helps put by rock climbing to collect bird eggs, and shoots the occasional bird as a bonus. The village used to be bigger and has a ruined complex next to it including a necroplis.
When goblins show up to raid the village the villagers want to buy its freedom by allowing the goblins to raid the ruins and the graves within it. While Sri’s family may be poor now, they used to be part of a warrior caste who fell from importance when a long lasting peace come over the country. Who needs warriors when there is no war? And it’s her ancestors buried there! She can’t believe her father is ok with the plan and seeks outside help to scare off the goblin raid. She doesn’t trust the goblins to keep their word, and old tales she grew up with talked about a great weapon resting in the mountain...

This is of course a way smaller version of the character sheet that I came up with but I don’t want to bore you too much. The gist of it is;
She is outgoing, comes from a rural community, is not afraid of adventure and has some martial arts training. I wanted to reflect this in simple practical clothes with some details like a knife and a stick she can use to carry a knapsack but doubles as a weapon.

@Lize A small piece of advice on something I noticed. Pre-covid I took figure drawing classes which went well enough. But my ‘eye’ really started improving when I started drawing inanimate objects laying around the house. Carefully watching and visually measuring up random household things apparently (for me) really helped my figure drawing practice.

@K-Flagg Thanks for sharing! It looks really slick, and I will look into how to subscribe on webtoons. I’m trying to do a comic for ages, but haven’t really gotten anywhere because I keep getting stuck on writing a story. Between writing a story, drawing and colouring it there is so much work I’ve not yet taken time to see how to actually share it on the internet. I gather webtoon works for you?