Bon Voyage

[Tuna Unleashed]

ref
i made this for a christmas gift for my sister. it doesn't feel finished but i dont know where to go next with it


edit:

[EvilEye]

Looks good, especially the body of the ship.

The sail looks like the real problem spot to me. It just doesn't look right. Maybe it's too far forward or at the wrong angle.

[Elk]

This piece has alot of potential!

What do you intend to achieve with finishing? What style is this to be?

[Tuna Unleashed]

no clue. i sort of just went where my hand took me on this one; i didn't really put a lot of thought into where i was taking it.

[Tourist]

I like the daytime version better.

I think the problem is that all the lines draw the eye to the back of the ship.  The body lines swoop back there and the stripes on the sail point there explicitly.  Only there is nothing there to look at, just a blank spot.

Probably could use a framing element along the right edge too, to keep the eye from wandering off that side.

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[Tuna Unleashed]

i like how colourful the daytime version is but the colours on the boat just seem better suited to the night. anyway, i don't really know much about framing or what draws the eye so if you could give me some suggestions as to how to fix that it would be a big help

[Tourist]

I'm not really an expert at this (yet).  Here's my attempt at explanation.



When I look at this, my eyes start at the high contrast sun vs sky or the prow of the boat, and then they follow the lines of the boat.  It's a nice pleasant curve.  Then my eyes run off the page to the right.

So I bring my eyes back to the center, and they follow the stripes on the sail to the back of the boat.  And then off the page again.

This is just the natural flow of how you have the image arranged.  I think you could put something important at the spot I marked with a green circle and it would provide a nice focal point for the viewer's eyes.

A framing element is something that acts like a frame and blocks the viewer's eyes from wandering out of the image.  The mountains on the left side of the image already do this.  If the eye wanders down the front of the boat and off to the left, boom boom boom.  Angled mountains break up any easy path out of the frame, and steer the eye back towards the right and down, back to the boat. 

If you add something to the right edge that leads the eye around and back to the boat I think the picture will be stronger. 

Professional cartoonist John K (Ren & Stimpy and a few other cartoons) wrote up some good info for composition on his blog here: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/11/composition-for-layout-and-bg-artists.html.  There are 9 parts, and some of it only applies to cartoons, but I thought most of it was good stuff.

There's a more brief page on composition here: http://www.galitz.co.il/en/articles/composition.shtml. Written for photos, but it applies.

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[Tuna Unleashed]

some updates of stuff


anyway, @tourist, when i look at it, i see the focal point as the golden head. i've tried to tone down the force of the sun/moon and the sail, so that might help i guess