Reworking another old piece

[NoWayMe]

Hello everyone! I am in the process of reworking my portfolio. Everything will either get updated or changed for new pieces.

I did this one for a third Thursday last year. I actually got a critique from @Will-Terry @Lee-White and @Jake-Parker but never got to modifying it. This is their critique :

− Get rid of at least 50 % of the animals
− Rework bushes (add detailled leaves, too fuzzy, not finished)
− Add grass at transition light/dark
− Shadows on alfred too dark
− Bush hidding mouse not high enough
− Group mouse on the same side

This is the image I submitted initially :

Below is where I am in the reworking. I wanted to share it here in case you have any other comments or tips on how to improve it before I move to "rerendering"

[Chip Valecek]

@nowayme I remember this one! I miss the old 3rd Thursday stuff. Great piece you have going here. Looking forward to seeing it updated.

[TessaW]

Awesome! So far so good! Maybe have the right adult giraffe's head raised up a bit to eat? My eyes keep going back to them, because it looks like they are having a conversation or something and I want to know what it's about. Kind of a knit picky thing, but I'm having trouble finding things to critique about this. It's looking really good.

[MissMarck]

@nowayme This is super small, but maybe lower the saturation of the tree behind the elephant? For some reason the elephant, tree, and bush all seem to somehow be clashing to me... and I think it's because all 3 are pretty saturated. The color of the elephant and bush are different enough, so I'm thinking it might be the color of the tree that's bothering me.
I'm honestly not sure though.

Everything looks really solid though! I'm excited to see where it goes!

[WithLinesOfInk]

I love the story in this! Some thoughts on my part:

Is there a reason the elephant is looking at the mice in the bush-hole? If not, and he's just in a state of euphoric surprise, maybe his eye should be directionless? (like this https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cGOMs4PPJ7Y/maxresdefault.jpg )? Only because I keep looking at those mice in the bush-hole and wondering why they're so important.

I still think the shadow on him may be a bit too strong, especially on the far ear- or maybe I'm just hankering form some bounce light or color. I do love me sound bounce light.

His trunk creates a bit of an odd tangent with the sleeping giraffes. It leads the eye up to them and then no payoff. If possible, maybe move them to a less conspicuous place?

If the main trunk of the tree were more vertical it may help complete the line of action leading us down your elephant and around to the main subject.

You may already be planning on doing this as your render, but I like to throw a touch of a blue filter over everything in the background to help make the foreground really pop. And if it's meant to be a children's book, less contrast in large areas is good for text purposes.

I lose the music notes. Perhaps they could be purple, to tie everyone together more?

I love his fat, tapered trunk!

Mostly just nitpicky stuff you could easily do without. I could fiddle with composition for yeeearrrs on my pieces

[NoWayMe]

@withlinesofink Thanks for the great critique!

For the mice in the bush, one of the comment I received from Will, Lee and Jake was to put all the mice together, on the left side of the image. I tried it, but then felt like the image was out of balance (to much stuff on the left side. The elephant is supposed to be looking at the elephant-like shadow on the ground.. not at the other mice. Maybe I should just get rid of these other mice completely...

Good catch on the tangent.

I am not sure I understand what you mean about making the tree trunk more vertical....

Thanks again!!

Thanks @MissMarck , @Chip-Valecek and @TessW

[WithLinesOfInk]

@nowayme Ah! So it he's looking at his shadow I would lose the mice on the right and give us a big foreground element to "bounce" viewer back into the scene so they don't go looking for nothing off to the right. This will help frame the shadow, too. Couldn't hurt to add a bit of unnatural saturation to the shadow to make it pop a bit more, like a lovely purple or turquoise?

I did a quick mock-up of the tree- it leans to the right now and I think it could just be a be a bit more vertical to stabilize the composition.