Tuesday, October 21, 2008

FIN before text

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really like this, but I'm concerned at how it will look with a gutter. The divide-line my prove harsh with this composition.

Anonymous said...

I agree. I'm not really sure what you can do about it though. At least the fish aren't right in the gutter though. Something about this cropping doesn't sit well with me, and I think it has to do with where the fish are cropped. There's an awkward tension there because they just barely leave the page before they loop back around again. The fact that they loop off the the left also kind of throws the balance and brings my eyes off the page, despite the fact that the fish are swimming into the composition. It might look better when the text is there also. Put some dummy text on it in Photoshop.

Anonymous said...

I do like the color a lot though and I don't know if the face always had barnacles on it, but I just noticed. Nice touch. Again, about the cropping, I do like how you've decided to crop off more of the boat, because it makes the fish problem seem a hidden danger or something that we're not typically aware of. You might think about zooming out a little bit though, but still cropping the boat out a little. I dunno.

Anonymous said...

ah! And that might solve the gutter problem too.

jaime said...

Thanks Evan and Matt for commenting.

Cody- How are you with saving layers this time? I'd consider trying some alternate compositions with the same drawing, perhaps backing out just a bit, or at least making sure the gutter works. You might be able to do this by centering it more and using the gutter in the same place as your very first sketch (under the nose), or make the ship actually much smaller, so that just the tip of it crosses the gutter.

As always, I like the drawing, agree the barnacles are nice, and the use of color in a way that shows evidence of traditional methods works well too. I do think it might be nice to see if you can emphasize the deepness/darkness of the water somehow, as the color is nice but not as rich and foreboding as it could be. The contrast between the sunny sky outside, and what is going on below the surface could be played up this way, perhaps pulling out some highlights in the face so it does not disappear.


I think starting to play with type at this point may be necessary, because if type is used well, the image will most likely look like it is in fact "missing something" until the type is set. The type will become an important part of the image too.

You are far along and have lots of time, so playing with this a few different ways with type may result in the optimal combination of type, color, and composition.