Thank you to everyone who made submissions to this week's illustration contest. We had some great drawings showing potential covers for future book ideas. Great job everyone; keep up the great work!
Kristi G. (Top 3) So I am going to focus on working on the story I had a while ago with the play date of boy and girl siblings. I am changing it up a little bit. I needed to simplify it to make it not so overwhelming. I am going to have just two characters. I am still going to contrast their likes, resulting in frustration, but ultimately they will learn how similar they really are and have a fun time doing it. My first cover idea was both of them posed back to back looking frustrated, but I felt that was a little negative. My favorite (and the one I put more time in) is the one with both of them side to side happy to be who they are and even happier to be with their friend (even though they are different). Something I need to change with this picture that I am noticing now is that they are too far apart. I was worried that this one was a little posed and stiff, so I thought about them on a swing (something they will be doing in the book). I like the idea, and obviously need to put more time on proportions and angles. I would like the title (which I am still not sure about) to be in block letters across the top. –Kristi
Nate S. (3 previous) I wanted to explore different layouts for the cover of the book I’m writing/illustrating for my daughter. It centers on the tooth fairy, the one from my last contest entry. I used some ideas from the covers’ of books that we like right now to rough out some general ideas. Let me know what you guys think. -Nate
I'd love to know what you think! -Scott
I had my girls help me out on this to get some ideas on what catches their eye. We all liked Nate's last one. You might want to make the border a little smaller and have the flowers and leaves in muted colors, so the characters have more of the focus. But we liked the second fairy's pose a little better than the third. Scott, the girls liked the second one and I liked the third one. They really got excited with the idea of the girl ending up in the bottle with her friend. I think a close up on your characters would really catch a buyer's eye when on a shelf.
ReplyDeleteI like what I've seen out of this week's submissions. Kristi, the one I like the most is the second one where they're both smiling. I think the idea would be very interesting if they were super dressed up. Like where you're going though. Scott, I like your second one the most where they're both in the bottle, I think its interesting, even if the story doesn't go there. If it's too much of a stretch from the story then I like the last one where you have the background behind them. I would be interested to see it in a portrait format. Thanks for your insight Kristi, I see what you mean and I think it sound better.
ReplyDeleteNice work. On Kristi's I can't quite decide...I think I like the swings the best...I'd play around with variations of that .....or maybe the first where they are unhappy toward eachother...from your description, I think that would be a good starting point. The second one...if you choose it, they are facing away from eachother and so his arm around her looks unnatural, but I know you still need to play with angles, so I thought I'd just mention that.
ReplyDeleteNate, I like the fairy with the tooth...unless you could somehow portray and interesting relationship between the fairy and the mouse. I like the border of the third and am sure you can do something more dynamic with the characters' posing within the middle frame...maybe the mouse could hold the tooth in his teeth and have them both looking down and the tooth like, "what is that"...or she could be unhappy with him for trying to eat the tooth..just a few ideas.
I agree with you on mine and will get to work...can our next contest be a full color, polished rendering?
Sounds great to me. I was thinking of possible next contest ideas but a request is great. Thanks for your input.
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