Saying Goodbye: Let's share our WIPs

[Reb Erlik]

Trying to choose a background layout. Which is better? Balcony or alley?

[Henry Compton]

@Reb-Erlik personally a big fan of the balcony

[Oana]

@Reb-Erlik I like the balcony more

[Reb Erlik]

@Mariana-B @Henry-Compton @Oana Thanks for the feedback, everyone!
I'm trying out a few more ideas for the background.
Kind of liking having her on a dock and the letters are floating on sea foam.

[Mariana B.]

@Reb-Erlik those are a lot of good concepts!

Painting water specially sea foam is so difficult! But I like the strong emotion that a tempestuous sea carries! However with the composition as it is, almost feel like there are 3 equally strong focuses, the sea splashing onto the deck, the paper bird, and the woman.

I see that you used the same women sketch in all the concepts, but I don’t know if you are thinking of it as a placeholder, or really holding on that specific sketch.
It’s a great sketch , the proportions of the woman are great and her pose looks really natural.
I personally struggle wanting to draw/explore other poses/angles after I get a sketch I really love! And I don’t know if that’s the case with you too, but maybe play around a little, if you allow yourself to re-draw the woman, you will not feel tempted to draw a background that will fit the pre-drawn woman but instead it will free you to try different concepts/angles as a whole?

I hope it makes sense, although I don’t consider myself great at compositions, but I hope it’s helpful in any way. I can’t wait to see the final!

I had to step away from mine for a few days, I have been having terrible migraine, but I am enjoying seeing all the great work everyone is posting.

[Reb Erlik]

@Mariana-B Thanks Mariana! I will keep in mind to make the seafoam a different value than the characters so it doesn't steal focus.
As for the character, I tried out several other poses in thumbnails earlier (you can scroll up near the top of this thread to see them) and decided it had to be this one to show enough detail on both characters.
I'm glad you like the dock! I was so indecisive on this background but I think this one is the winner.
Thanks for your feedback! Hope you feel better soon!

[Alice Logan]

I like the humor of the boy hiding a puppy in his backpack. That also gives the illustration more story than just having a child wave goodbye. I have a thought that may or may not work to push this even further. What if the mom was trying to talk to the boy (or even to a third person) and he was trying to shoo her off as quickly as possible before she had a chance to notice the puppy, maybe pointing at her car or keys or something. "Good BYE, Mom! See you later! You don't want to be late for work!"

[Reb Erlik]

Pencils done. Might resize some things and add darker values.

[Jeremy Hamann]

This was a concept I was noodling with for the October prompt, but ended up chickening out at the idea of illustrating robots to be critiqued by Jake

[Filip Draskovic]

This post is deleted!