May 2022 Storm WIPs

[Kristen Lango]

Hey all! This month I'm trying to get two entries submitted (a tall task for me).

Here's one of the sketches with the concept of: A narrow escape on a windy day at Nutterton Farm.

Here's the beginning of this piece which I'm completing in a tra-digital style:

This one is done in my "hybrid" style, where I scan watercolor swatches I make plus other old papers I've found at an old bookstore in my neighborhood which is such good fun The plane is an old German map:

And the second concept is: On rainy nights, Kali's dreams were a storm of strange.

This piece is done in my traditional style with watercolor pencils, wax colored pencils, ink and some posca pen.

Let me know what you think!

[Kristen Lango]

An update on this piece:

Going to be playing with the color and value adjustments quite a bit yet...

[Kristen Lango]

[Mike Marttila]

@Kristen-Lango I'm really loving the hybrid approach on this one--can't wait to see what the final piece ends up looking like!

[Robert Henderson]

@Kristen-Lango

In enjoy seeing your progress and how you are working through you ideas. The paper airplane is great it really caught my attention.

Keep working, can hardly wait to see what your final looks like.

[Kristen Lango]

@Mike-Marttila Thanks so much! I'm hoping I can wrangle the textures to my favor and not make it too busy looking

[Melissa_Bailey]

@Kristen-Lango loving the textures! Making an airplane out of a map -- brilliant!

Just something to consider: the placement of the elements and angle of the airplane confuses the story for me.

Is the storm chasing/attacking the characters in the plane? Is the airplane crash landing? That's my initial thought, because of the angle and the pieces breaking off. But then ... it's not really a steep decline, so maybe it's still flying? And then the one character looks really excited and in control, which makes me think that he is intentionally flying at that angle.

But then the other character is scared -- of the storm or that the plane is breaking apart? My guess is the latter because of where they're looking. But then if that's the story, what does the storm have to do with it? Are they caught in the storm? If so, then perhaps the storm could be bigger, actually touching and interacting with the plane.

Just some questions I had. Again, lovely textures and beautiful style! The storytelling just isn't as clear for me.

[Kristen Lango]

@Melissa_Bailey Thanks so much Melissa! That gives me a lot to think about for sure, thanks for bringing those things to my attention.

My story idea is: Squire Squirrel Nutterton has presented Ania (the girl) with a map, one that has many functions, it's their guide, as well as their magical mode of transportations. Ania and Nutterton have set out on the paper plane, seeing as the wind was in their favor, but the light wind turns into a storm that they have to escape, but that same wind is propelling the windmill which they've just hit on accident shredding the plane. It's an adventure that's gone wrong in more ways than one, so you're correct in saying it's a crash landing.

I'd imagined Nutterton pointing to a lake on which they'll land safely, and the paper plane will transform itself into a paper boat... until perhaps they'll face a wave much too large, then the map will become a paper bird flying them off, then a paper bike, car and so on.

So that's roughly the concept ^ but I haven't worked out key elements like where they're going and why.

While I didn't plan on the storm chasing them, I did want it to be an ominious characterized force looming behind them.

Thanks again for your feedback, it's super helpful!

[Kristen Lango]

@Melissa_Bailey does this look better or worse in terms of the size of the plane and characters and the storm?

[Kristen Lango]

I feel I'm nearing the end on this piece. I don't like to over work things and I've spent a good twenty hours or so on this now - but do let me know if anything pops out as strange. Thanks all!

[Melissa_Bailey]

@Kristen-Lango LOVE your textures! There's so much movement in this piece! And 20 hours of work ... whew! Know the feeling.

As you're finalizing, you may want to pay attention to your values and how they impact the storytelling. While the storytelling is much clearer, after seeing all the elements come together, there still is some confusion for me, especially the angle of the plane and how just the tip is going off the page. Controlling your values might help with that, along with adjusting the individual elements, if they're on separate layers.

What is your focal point? Do you want the eyes to go to the plane & characters first, or the storm, or the farm? Or the windmill? (That's the lightest element with the most contrast, so it does tend to draw the eye.)

Hope you don't mind that I took a screenshot -- this is to visually show what I'm talking about. I didn't change anything to it but convert to grayscale, allowing us to focus on the value without color.

While there are light and darks, the main elements tend to land in a middle value.

Here is that same image with some value adjustment:

This example might be a little darker than you were originally going for, but I really wanted to push the values to put the focus on the plane and main characters -- plus, tornadoes usually are accompanied by darkened skies that knock out a lot of light.

One more thing you may want to consider is adjusting or changing the color of Nutterton -- he is a middle value and doesn't stand out against the similarly colored sky.

Just a few thoughts. Love all the movement and detail in this piece! I think adjusting some colors and values will really clarify the storytelling and take it to the next level!

[Kristen Lango]

@Melissa_Bailey Thanks so much for this!! I really appreciate you taking the time to do that value study and typing this up! This helps me so much in understanding how to make this more clear and effective... I spent 10 minutes looking at it thinking, hmm something isn't quite right, and this has definitely helped me to see what that is!

Things are on separate layers so adjusting this should be doable. Thanks again! I'll send another version once I've taken a crack at fixing those values

[Melissa_Bailey]

@Kristen-Lango you're so welcome! Glad it helped clarify things for you and you know where you want to go with this piece now!

[Robert Henderson]

@Kristen-Lango

Great textures. It is definitely a fun composition. I would have never thought of a blue cow, which is really comical. You are really developing your own style and heading in an exciting direction.

[Kristen Lango]

@Melissa_Bailey Definitely it did! Here's what I've come up with

[Kristen Lango]

And here is the black and white of that, which I think makes things more clear... I've left a little white around the characters as well as a way to draw attention them in the chaos of the scene... I'm going back and forth if I like that part or not...

[Melissa_Bailey]

@Kristen-Lango MUCH more clear! The focus is now on the main characters. Well done!

[Kristen Lango]

@Melissa_Bailey Aw thank you! You've been such a help

[Kristen Lango]

@Robert-Henderson Thank you Robert! That's really sweet of you to say and means a lot to me