Making my first Portfolio

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

Thank you for the feedback! Yes I will definitely make the door frame lighter, and make the stepmother silhouette pop out. I had difficulties to change the mask opacity in the software I’ve used.

[Kim Rosenlof]

@Geoffrey-Mégardon Your characters are great. I like the colors and silhouettes. I do agree with @Nyrryl-Cadiz with the changes she made on page 3 and 4. The composition feels better and it is easier to see the stepmother now. I do like the modern twist on the Hansel and Gretel story. Can't wait to see how this progresses.

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

Here is an update of the page 3 where I tried to make the silouhette stand out and get rid of the noise.

I will call it done for now as I spent way too much time on the color of this piece!

Meanwhile I started to work on a new piece that is the Candy House scene. It’s 90% complete but I hesitate between going for a pinkish background or a blue background.
I like the pink because it makes the trees look like candy clouds, but I like the blue as well because it implicitly hints to a dark turn in the story.

Which one do you prefer?

Edit: how do I resize a picture so that it only takes 50% of the available width?

[ajillustrates]

@Geoffrey-Mégardon Why not both? You can have a layer that’s the pink overlay, mask it to just show the house/trees/etc, and then you can control how strong the pink is relative to the dark background with the opacity or blending modes.

[Chantal Goetheer]

@Geoffrey-Mégardon I love your candy house! I'm trying to create a candy world but struggle a lot and yours seems so fun, effortless and simply awesome.
Colour wise my first instinct is the darker one but I would also turn it to gray scale to check how the character and house stand out best in terms of contrasting values.

[Griffin McPherson]

@Geoffrey-Mégardon these look great! The start to a strong portfolio I think

[AnumC]

These look great! I love the illustration of the candy house. Amazing work!

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

@Chantal-Goetheer it is definitely not effortless haha! But they says it becomes easier and easier with time, right

I do check the grayscale regularly, I set up my iPad so that 3 click on the power button make the screen in grayscale. Super handy!

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

Thank you for all your feedback!

As usual, I could not wait to start a new piece, so I let the question of pink or blue for the candy house for later. But it seems that many people like the blue one.

So here is my current piece. After the feedback on Hansel, I wanted to make a kid with a head shape and proportion that is more standard in the industry. I also tried to go toward a more painting style using Aveline Stokart as an inspiration (she speak about her method in 21Draw). It was fun but there is so much to explore!

Without background:

With a simple background:

What do you think of the general illustration? Should I have a few illustrations in that style in my portfolio next to my usual line art/comics style which I used for Hansel and Gretel? Do you think the version with the background is good enough? I like the way the light pops up on the version without background, but I also like how the background create a sense of space.

[ArtistErin]

@Geoffrey-Mégardon Love this I love the silhouette of the candy house, so much fun.. If you make any changes on this, I would lighten the value of the dark blue background so the house pops more?

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

I am working on the composition of my next portfolio piece, featuring one of my original character, John Space.

What do you think in terms of the narrative and the composition? Is it clear what is happening? Would kids like this? Is the composition working?

I also tried with only one creature here.

I initially thought of a swarm of scary black rabbits, but I thought it was too scary, too reminiscent of Rayman Legends and also the angle did not allow to really show their faces. But I don’t know, I am still hesitating!

I believe that this kind of space ranger adventure won’t necessarily be for younger kids. But seeing Disney releasing Light Year and Strange World makes me think that there might be a market for space rangers and exploring strange worlds haha!

[kirsten-mcg]

@Geoffrey-Mégardon I like The compositions with The creatures that completely fill the bottom of the image best. The tentacles are probably my favorite, but the bunny things with teeth are also cool. For some reason they remind me of a carnivorous plant, which could be fun. This kind of image reminds me of the kind of characters and situations you see in graphic novels. Have you ever considered exploring that route? I can see this character in the kind of graphic novel that my kids go crazy for! They are junior high age, And I think this sort thing fits that age group perfectly.

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

@kirsten-mcg yes, I would love to make comics for kids / adults /all the family.

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

Progress of the day

[Jean Watson]

@ajillustrates I think this is a good idea. The pink really makes the house pop but might be too much for the background as well.

[Sarah VanDam]

@Geoffrey-Mégardon Hey, this is phenomenal!! Super cool character and environment design. I’d say, just watch a couple tangents. In fact, maybe you could simplify some of the background elements and push the tentacles more so they’re not competing as much with the cactus-y plants.

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

@Sarah-VanDam that's a good point, it was complicated to avoid tangents with so many elements, so I am glad you point them out. I think to move the elements slightly around should solve them.

The new composition that you suggest is similar to some of my earlier thumbnails, and I decided to give the tentacles less space so that we can see the background more. I sometimes hesitate so much with 2 different solutions that at the end I just go for one.

@kirsten-mcg by the way, would you be able to send me a little list of the graphic novels that your kids love? I would like to get a better understanding of what's on the market, which is close to what I like

[kayleenartlover]

@Geoffrey-Mégardon One trick for making a kid look younger, is having them missing a tooth. It’s optional, but sometimes it makes it look cute and the age a bit more clear than a full set of teeth.

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

@kayleenartlover do you mean for the kid who is opening a box? Or for Hansel?

[Geoffrey Mégardon]

I fixed the tangents and I did a draft of how the final colors and lights could look like. I changed the color of the guns as a result, to make it more readable.
I might try other lightings/colors.