Mock Trading card art - The Feisty Piratess!

[zephyri]

Hey guys, I'm hoping you good people can give me some pointers on this mock trading card piece I'd like to add to my portfolio. I've attached the current WIP and the thumbnails I did so you can get an idea of where I'm at and what I've done to get there. The style should eventually be slightly pushed - something more along the warcraft lines - bright and colourful. The intent is to keep it fairly simple - readable both right way and upside down - and to show the character (my piratess, Eideann) using her water powers to run down a couple of enemy pirates.

It's fairly early days thus far, so what you see here is a quick block in of sky, and some of the sepia tonal work done first - Eidy's clothing will be reds and purples. Totally open to suggestions, paintovers etc, and definitely not averse to completely redrawing if I have to. The pose and leg tangents are bugging me most, as I feel like even though I've been drawing the anatomy in under, the clothing is throwing off the readability of it. I should add that I don't usually use boobs so prominently, but in this case, it's part and parcel of the character (though if it's felt inappropriate I can tweak them ) Was using some of these images as references to help me flesh out the original gesture thumbnails that were off the top of the head. http://senshistock.deviantart.com/ar...ence-341029578

[Stoat]

Coming along nicely. I like *all* the thumbnails. Heh.

[Black Spot]

That's one lively interesting character there.

[J.R.Hollis]

This is more of a question then a statement.

Wouldn't a good trading card image just be a good compositional piece just shrunk down? I'm really asking, should you constrain yourself and your design to the small window of the card from the get go? I'm looking at some magic the gathering art and it seems like some of the coolest images are made by artists that didn't choke themselves into the confines of the card's dimensions at first (1,2,3,4,5).

Or is this a moot point?

[zephyri]

Azusa: it's a fair question - do you happen to know of any comparison images between art done for cards that wasn't the same aspect ratio and then the cropped card? My natural workflow would be to compose something that works well within the ratio of the card (though I've just realised I may be composing this image the wrong way up (portrait v landscape)) as I would imagine that's how most card art is done from scratch. But I could well be wrong.

[J.R.Hollis]

Think in comparison to Yu gi oh cards (keep in mind that your art is better in all respects, I'm just thinking composition.), and Magic the gathering in that respect.

Now keep in mind that I'm not trying to criticize your art in a negative light, but the composition is very yu gi oh with the subject matter cut off in tangents to fit the image. All of that action is cut off by the imaginary borders of the card, and leaves all of the implied information to be filled in by the viewer.

That last colored image doesn't have this problem though.

[zephyri]

Cool.. I shall check out Yugioh cards to have a look at their composition I should add that the figures at the bottom there are deliberately cropped like that - to keep the pirate as the main focus on size and position, but maybe the crop is a bit extreme...

[J.R.Hollis]

Yeah!

Keep in mind that I think your art is freaking sweet, I just thought that this was a question worth asking.

[zephyri]

Okay so I realised I'm a total doofus, and am creating the artwork in the wrong format, so have tweaked the original and cropped it to be landscape. Durf. Any thoughts? Am thinking I'll have to take some ref for the legs since they're giving me such issues. Also added a little more colour to get an overall feel for mood.

[Stoat]

That left foot is cocked at an extreme angle. At least, it would be extreme in real life; it's done quite a lot of in comic poses. So you should be able to sell it.

That's how I like my violence -- cheerful and sexy.

[Hexokinase]

I'm not a fan of that left leg being so vertical - kinda creates a visual 'wall'.

I question the notion of her skimming on water like that, but nevertheless it worked better in the previous iteration. Right now the bottom is cropped so tight that it's difficult to give her some environmental context. When I see it I wonder if she's jumping off or on a boat, and if so, where the hell is the boat? She looks like she's in the middle of nowhere, but I can't piece together how and why she got there.

[Giacomo]

Any thoughts? Am thinking I'll have to take some ref for the legs since they're giving me such issues. Also added a little more colour to get an overall feel for mood.

I like the face quite a bit. My advice is to not worry about the legs. Punch up the color and crop it to the interesting part--if you don't mind me saying so, the rest of the picture is kind of boring anyway.

[zephyri]

Stoat: Thank you! Yeah the legs are more... placeholders at the moment till I can figure the reality of it out, and re-distort it properly.

Hex: Agreed! Is a bit of a visual stop. And yeah was struggling with the re-composing a little. Hopefully the update addresses this a little better.

Giacomo: thanks for dropping by! And I don't mind you saying that at all I do like the crop too... but I'll probably do the whole image at a higher res as I like the more narrative element to the whole image, as it got a little of her elemental power into it. At worst I can crop it into her face and chest as you have if things really don't work.

Here's a rough rework - read any better now?

[Giacomo]

The only reason I can tell what's going on with the pirate girl is that her pose is a a commonly used one in comics and fantasy art. If you *must* include her lower body, I'd STRONGLY suggest you find some photo reference for the pose....right now the forms from the waist down simply don't read at all in terms of foreshortening, shading and proportion.

JPEG below...if you saw that on a gallery wall, would you recognize it as a pair of legs (+ bustier-ed boob)?

[zephyri]

Giacomo: that's always been the plan.. I just like figuring out a rough composition for the body so I know what kind of shapes I need for ref. I'll take the ref and use that as a base to reconstruct what I have here if it's humanly possible (I suspect the foot angle will have to be amended, or the foreshortening should be more extreme). Really appreciate the comments though, you're totally right with the upside down legs... I haven't flipped the image yet either to see how feasible it looks from the other direction.

[Giacomo]

I just like figuring out a rough composition for the body so I know what kind of shapes I need for ref. I'll take the ref and use that as a base to reconstruct what I have here if it's humanly possible (I suspect the foot angle will have to be amended, or the foreshortening should be more extreme)

Free advice: shoot your reference NOW and let it guide the composition of the picture. It's great that you're going for a gesture that's more (far more) dynamic than anything on your dA and sketchbook---but if you want it to look really good, you should slow down and get a bit more analytical about the anatomy and foreshortening.

As always, just my two cents.

Edit: Also, "feisty" is spelled f-e-i-s-t-y. "Fiest-y" suggests she's similar to a Spanish or Mexican celebration.