Genie Illustration for a competition

[Angel Intheuk]

Hiya

I'm doing this picture for Neil Gaimans Blackberry collaboration, he wrote 12 stories based on suggestions from fans and opened up a competition to illustrate them... http://keepmoving.blackberry.com/des...il-gaiman.html (this is for the October tale)

It's nearly finished and I'll more than likely find stuff to tweak before the deadline on Monday, but wanted to run it by you guys to see what else I can improve before I do.

cheers

[Nainteins]

Well... the smoke can have lights and shadows, now it's only a blurry thing

[dierat]

Hey there Angel! I think it looks great so far. My only concerns are the perspective of the table/lamp/jar, which I don't feel are 100% consistent with each other, and the color contrast. I feel like your color palette is a bit disjointed and could handle a little more unification. Maybe choose a couple of dominant colors to use throughout the image and play off each other (for example, you have a subtle green/pink contrast going on, maybe push that a bit more?) Also the top of the image feels a tad empty to me (partially because there's a bit of empty space between the genie and the top border and also because the bottom of the image has a lot of little details so it feels a little unbalanced). Maybe enlarge the genie so he's filling the space a little better.

Also, I thought the images for the calendar need to be in landscape format. But I don't know for sure because I only see it mentioned here (skim down to just before the "Read Neil's Tales" button): http://ayame-kenoshi.deviantart.com/...ales-355276614

[Angel Intheuk]

Brilliant suggestions thank you nainteins and Dierat I don't have access to my computer til sunday so hopefully I'll have time to work on all of those.

Dierat thanks for the landscape format pointer, I looked (almost) everywhere I could for size and orientation information, it could have been clearer, well, that'll probably help with the spacing issues at the top.

[bill618]

I think your genie could use a little sparking up, to punch up the illustration a bit and add some quirky character to draw attention.

Just my quirky slant.

[fersteger2]

Yeah, sparkle the genie up! I definitely think there should be some indication of magic, some glow or sparkle or light emanating from somewhere. Even if it's like a glimmering highlight right at the tip of the lamp where the smoke pours out. Nice work good luck!!

[Angel Intheuk]

bill thanks you so much!! that's awesome! I'm definitely doing that, thanks again for taking the time to do a paint over.

fersteger thanks, yeah sparkle sparkle! nice idea having a glow.

ooh I'm all excited about these changes, thanks again guys x

[Stoat]

This is probably just me foisting one of my favorite design elements off on your painting, but I always love it when ribbons or scarves or smoke plumes explicitly twist around in a spiral, and you can tell which is the 'back' side and which is the 'front'. You've *almost* got that going in the smoke here.

I admit, Wizard of Oz scared me juiceless when I was little.

[Angel Intheuk]

Stoat that's a great idea, I definitely tried to implement it, it didn't look nearly as stylish as yours though



Thanks again for the contributions guys, I made the deadline, but changing it to landscape took up more time than I thought, I had to change the background because it wasn't working and I think it lost a lot of it's charm.







I wasn't happy with it so I worked on a bit more. There are still a lot of things I want to work on before I call it finished...

[ccsears]

i like stoat's suggestion a lot.

i'd also suggest maybe making the genie bigger or moving him slightly. right now the left / upper left of the composition seem a little bit empty. sure, you could fill that with smoke and effects too though.

...or how about you crop a little bit off the top of the image and add a little more at the bottom so you can maybe see the edge of the desk or so the edge of the drawing paper isn't perfectly parallel to the edge of the picture.

you could also have the smoke coming from the lamp curl across the table, fall down off the far edge of the desk so you can't see it and then have it come shooting back up into the picture...

but i think it's a great start! you have good elements here in the picture, just don't be afraid to play around with their placement a little bit more.

[manlybrian]

The two brushes laying on the table look a bit like they're standing upright at first glance. You might consider repositioning them or doing some overlap with the jar to give the impression of laying on the surface. [/nitpicky]

[Velocity Kendall]

i love stoats smoke and bills zingy colours. i read you had to change it to landscape. that might be an opportunity to open it out and have lots of crazy colours coming off him and shining on the walls.
maybe paint from reference as a base, for nice light, changing details to suit