In need of critique - Illustration

[Nibras]

Line art rough of an illustration I am going to be completing. It's an important project so I am really wanting to push it to the best of my ability. A lot is still rough and I'll be fixing anatomy

Some critique on what to do with the background - it looks wrong, mainly the rocks, the waves and positioning of the character. Any other tips as well. Paint-overs would really be appreciated



Cheers

[Nezumi Works]

Your instincts are right, I'd say. Think about positioning, the dead-center character position, despite the special effects, isn't all that dramatic. What you want to do is think off-center, preferably on the thirds but there are other options, and probably an up shot of some sort if this is a very powerful character. A few thumbnails of alternate angles and placement probably would go a long way.

[Lightship69]

Can you give us any more detail as to what its about and what its meant to do? for example whats the instruction, age group etc. etc.

As omen said try some more thumbs and see if you can work it up to be more different and exciting.

one thought I had would be to concentrate the lightning effects around her and move her left of centre also lose most of the other sky effects as you are going to have so much bounced light around the place its going to be really hard for you to render into a coherant whole.

[Nibras]

Thank you for the advice guys, I can't really go to crazy with the composition because it has to fit inside something very similar to a magic the gathering trading card. I'll lower the "camera" angel and move her around as suggested. There won't be any other effects in the sky other than the lightning.

The brief is typical, she's almost superhero and draws her powers from storms, the sea and islands. This has to be made clear in the illustration. I am looking for advice mainly on the composition which has to read strongly inside a very small rectangle box, something like the below, so I think I'll take up Nezumi's advice and apply the rule of 3rds


Thanks for the crits so far

[Nezumi Works]

Okay, we've got something to work with. For a small-scale project, silhouette is extremely important, because you want this to read easily at a glance. So based on that I'd have the storm as more a dramatic background element, for example being able to see the thunderhead in the distance with lightning below. Perhaps standing on a rocky outcropping over choppy seas would show the islands bit. It would certainly allow for isolation of the figure and lots of variation in silhouette. See what appeals to you in your thumbnails, maybe there'll be a happy accident at some point.

[sone_one]

all your "props" are more emotionally expressing than your principal, making us go "whoah expressive character, infront of even more expressive background... where am i supposed to look / whats the message / is he (artist) fooling me (audience).... oh ill show him what to expect if i feel fooled!... "bam!"".

i feel like the silhuette of our principal is echoed alot in the lightning streaks and foreground formations, therefore tieing it more into the whole, where contrast should be used to make it pop.

[edit] also the horizontals in the background are of huge importance in this sketch, therefore introducing even another actor, im at this point not even remotely interested in.

[Nibras]

An update, put in some of the stuff you guys were talking about like moving the character etc. Working on this and need to get it finished for Thursday. All advice, crits and comments greatly appreciated

[Nibras]

Here's an update, from here on it'll just be fixes until its finished. The face is definitely bugging me. Any critiques would be appreciated

[LordLouis]

Oh, reminds me very much of rk post's paintings for MTG! I love playing with his cards, very intense. Maybe some inspiration:

[Nibras]

Thanks for that