Help with a board book

Pamela Fraley

@Miriam I love all those images! I think it is kind of a regular thing, especially in anime, that the characters don’t necessarily match the backgrounds. Its hard to know when its okay to do that though. Like… when do you know its working or not working? I have received critiques in the past that I need to work on matching better… haha! Illustrating is a confusing business.
I am so thankful for SVS though. Learning how to plan with thumbnails and things has been one of the most valuable lessons. Saves so much time and energy!
Thank you for the feedback and encouragement!

Pamela Fraley

Here’s another page I’m working on. I don’t hate it, but I’m also not completely happy. I welcome critiques!
Things I’m learning…

Making a characters fit an environment is hard! Im fairly comfortable drawing either a character or an environment, but putting them together is really tricky for me. And, I think its actually harder digitally because of the separation of layers.
Changing the pose of a character is tricky
Keeping the environment consistent page to page is also hard. Especially when you are “zooming” in and out.

@Pamela-Fraley It's so wonderful that you're making this board book! You have some lovely quiet images so far. Some thoughts I have looking at this new composition:

Have you tried it from a different angle so that the person and mouse aren't almost directly across from one another?
Adding some red or a few spots of warmer colors could add some areas of interest to the composition if you want to go in that direction.

Hope that helps. Looking forward to seeing how your book turns out!

Pamela Fraley

@Stephanie-H
I didn’t even notice that! I might have to go back and look at Will’s creative composition class. I’m honestly being very cautious and safe with this project because I’m just not super comfortable with so much. I think I could push the person further into the background, I just have to remember perspective rules and figure out how to draw feet from a different angle. And yes! I want to bring in some more colorful elements. I need some leaves for one of the pages, so maybe I should add them in on some earlier pages too. I think I will really need to go back and push the focal points once I get the initial work done. Thank you for your feed back!

ArtistErin

Love your very peaceful and beautiful palette! Very inspiring

Pamela Fraley

Is this a better composition than the other one with just the feet? Obviously it’s not finished. I just sort of threw everything in and blocked in the guy real quick

Pamela Fraley

@ArtistErin thank you! I tend to like my environments better than my characters. Need to work on putting them together. ️

Asyas_illos

@Pamela-Fraley I like the first rendition better personally.

@Pamela-Fraley I agree that I still like the first one at this point it. Disregard my comment from before.

Pamela Fraley

@Stephanie-H illustration is so confusing! I know a good one when I see it, but actually building one is not easy. I feel like I’m majorly over thinking at this point. Maybe I’ll just keep going till it’s all done and then see what needs work. Thank you for feedback! It really helps to just try different things.

@Pamela-Fraley It's so awesome that you are working on a book project!
Keep sharing your progress with us