July 18th, 2006 | Category:
The Night Monkeys illustration is done and my signature placement is the only thing left to be approved.
For those of you who enjoy BEHIND-the-SCENES, I’ll be posting versions of the work as it developed. Let’s start of with the studies and what thoughts went into deciding the best composition.
* these studies are not done in chronological order
Studies 1 & 2 share similar composition. Study 1 had an option of having our main characters face the reader and the overall orientation is tilted. Study 2 puts the characters in silhouette and clearly have their backs to the reader. I wasn’t so clear at this point whether the publisher would go for a back view. I didn’t want the main character to be too “in-your-face” or to draw too much attention to herself (and her story) and take away from the anthology as a whole.
Studies 3 to 5 are developments of one composition – the swirl. I like the swirl. Notice that the head of the girl is pretty much the same place for studies 1 to 5. Golden rectangle composition. The party-like atmosphere and the movement generate by the swirling composition mades study 5 very appealing – except the tilt was a little too extreme. Notice that the girl has one hand holding on and one hand in flying off – that pretty much tells the kind of girl she is.
Study 6 is pretty drab and conventional with our main character in the middle on a throne surrounded by monkeys. Too much attention to the character and it wasn’t exactly expressing the visions I saw as I read the story. The same can be said about study 8.
Study 7, 9, and 10 take bird’s eye views and worm’s eye views of the character. Bird’s eye views appealed to me because that way the main characters can be larger and thus carry more detail in contrast with the negative space in the center. The worm’s eye view didn’t stand a chance (all those monkeys… woe).
So I took what I liked about my favorite studies (2,5,7) and worked them into each other – starting with study 2 as a base. My next post will feature the color studies and how the perspective of the scene develops
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