Work on my Portfolio (ongoing)

[Nathalie Kranich]

I haven't posted in here for a while!
So this month is a busy one. I've fully completed Inktober, which is all up on my website now. In fact right here, if anyone's curious.

Now I'm prepping a set of art prints for a couple fairs and conventions at the end of the month, doing a few commissions, and trying to do slowvember!
So for slowvember I want to do visual research and exploration of a vague book idea I can use to make some mock spreads and covers.

It's gonna be called "Juniper in the Jungle House", about a girl that visits her ex-explorer grandma who lives in a house full of potted jungle plants grown out of control! Throw a tabby tiger cat and a parrot in the mix.

So today I did some visual dev for the cat!

Even though I've been adding more hatching and pencil textures, I'm still afraid my art is too digital looking for a children's book market...but im struggling with the idea of changing it up too forcefully, because I like it! And this style still comes naturally to me and feels right.

[Nathalie Kranich]

Progressing on my Slowvember! I've narrowed down thumbnails and fleshed out two sketches that could make a final illustration.

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Nathalie-Kranich i love the bottom one with more plants.

[MichaelaH]

Wow so lovely, I love both of them, I cannot deside, which one I like more. Maybe the upper one, because I like to see the animals also...

[Nathalie Kranich]

I'm also having a really hard time deciding! So for the moment I'm still working on both.
It's slowvember after all!

[chrisaakins]

@Nathalie-Kranich the top one reads more jungle, the bottom one, house. I think the top one would be the better one, but I read the window as some sort of ruins of a column or something rather than a window. Maybe add some context to it? Curtains, trim? A picture frame next to it?

[MichaelaH]

@Nathalie-Kranich Both of them are so great, but slowly I am liking the second idea, because the girl is not like Tomb Rider adventure girl but a normal girl having adventure in a house of explorer grandma. Maybe it is the hut in the above picture.
What about changing the eyes of the girl on the bottom illustration, that she is looking down to the book title, because now she is looking up.

[eriberart]

I prefer the bottom one. The composition feels more interesting to me and it flows well. The top feels a little more confusing to me as there is a lot going on (although I love the girl's hair flip!:smiling_face_with_open_mouth_closed_eyes:).
The bottom might look better if you mirrored it, as then the girl and torch would be facing the direction of the page turn, encouraging the reader to open the book

[Nathalie Kranich]

Oooh interesting thoughts!
@eriberart I'll give that a try and see how it looks! Can't fault that logic.
@MichaelaH I see what you mean, but I don't think I want the title to be part of the storytelling.
@chrisaakins good call! I'll see what I can include in the render.

By now I had anyhow rendered the second one, before reading your feedback.

Need to think about typography this upcoming week as well!
Thanks for all your input!

[Heather Boyd]

@Nathalie-Kranich this is great! I liked both and if you returned to the first I would watch not to cut the toucan (sp check by Braden lols) in half with the light. If someone else said it already sorry.

[braden H]

@Heather-Boyd I misread your post and was about to try and research 'tuscan half light' as some kind of obscure art term

[Nathalie Kranich]

Finished both of these now, am running out of time to do more tweaks so I ended up submitting the under the bed cover. I like both of these quite a bit and they've been great to work on.

I still see a lot of value in the feedback I haven't addressed in this, flipping makes a lot of sense, just needed to finish this up with something I was pretty confident with before the evening Can I throw two covers of the same thing on my portfolio I wonder? I like them both...

[Heather Boyd]

@Nathalie-Kranich

I love the first one with the addition of the fireplace and the grandmother picture frame. But the shadows are lovely in the second one. I would read and buy this book. I'm not at all jealous lols.

[Nathalie Kranich]

@Heather-Boyd Thank you! Envy is exactly what I aim to inspire XD

[KaraDaniel]

@Nathalie-Kranich love the shadows on the second cover. good work!