Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I need your help

So I was pretty happy working on this illo, and my son really liked it too, and then my husband (who always notices things that don't quite work -- which is good) pointed out that the perspective here is wrong, that the floor is tilted too far upward. So now I don't want to finish this one, but since I really need animals for my portfolio (and think I did a pretty good job with these pigs) I want to re-do it. So here's where your help comes in. What do I need to do to make the perspective work better? He says the way that the stool's legs and pigs compared to the perspective with the entertainment center don't jive. I mostly understand perspective, but what is the solution? Can I still have the TV back so far (so as not to take over the most important points)? Do I need to make the back of the stool's leg higher up? I guess I can do perspective with one object, but where I falter is when two or more objects lie in the same plane. It may be too hard to describe in the comments section, but if you have any help for me, I will gladly take it (and that goes for anything else that needs improvement here). Besides all that, I hope you enjoy my three little "pigs."

7 comments:

Michelle Henninger said...

Honestly, I may not be the best person to ask about perspective, since I struggle with it too, but I think this piece looks great. I would even finish it and put it in the portfolio. Maybe some of the others will notice something that I'm not, but personally, I really like it. I think it has great action, the pigs look fantastic, and the colors work too. I think you've done a fine job here!

Vanessa Brantley Newton said...

I'm with Michelle. I hate doing perspective, but looking at your picture I think you have it on point. Everything look the right to me. Like nothing really stands out. I adore the action and the character. It has modern touches, but still has a storybook feel. I like it alot. The colors are out standing indeed! YOU NAILED IT GIRLY!!!

Linda Kay said...

What your husband may be seeing is that the back wall & TV are slightly tilted downward on the right rather than being exactly horizontal to the picture plane (he has a good eye!). This is not really a problem as few people would see it & it can be adjusted ever so slightly with added value along all of the horizontal lines. The angle of the stool & the "tilt" of the plane toward the back is also not a problem. Overall, this is an excellent piece! The pigs are great; the color is very good; there's lots of activity. It's a keeper! Nice job!

Anonymous said...

It's only a tad off. I'd place it in your portfolio.

When working with perspective it's always a good thing to pull out a piece of tracing paper and a ruler. Find the horizon point (way out of the picture in this case) and draw lines that converge there. Then you can see where things don't jive exactly.

I always have trouble with ROUND items in perspective. I like to draw things at odd perspectives. Talk about a reality nightmare. LOL

Paige Keiser said...

Your perspective here is just fine (in my humble opinion). Your horizon line runs right across the top of the tv. The only thing 'off' is the TV slanting from right to left, BUT - it's a great illustration, and if you look at most illustrations, there is always an imperfection (mine included). I always have things slanting: door frames, building edges etc..). Perfect is the enemy of good. What's important is the entire illustration as a whole. I would keep it as a portfolio piece. Plus, PIGS RULE! :)

Lisa M Griffin said...

The perspective doesn't bother me, I think the way you created the tv/entertainment center with the doors maybe more distracting. Can you just make the tv more simple and smaller? That way it fades into the background and the pigs are more focal. The other suggestion I would have to give dimension to the piece would be to stagger the pigs. Maybe the one eating the snow cone could be pushed back between the other pigs and the tv, slightly. The pig characters are great, you sould be happy with them. They are full of personality and your color usage is great as well. Hope this helps!

Heather said...

The perspective didn't jump out at me. It's not like this is an arcitectural drawing so small inconsistencies wouldn't be a problem. And your pigs are wonderful--they do steal the show. I just learned something about perspective recently--when doing two point perspective the vanishing points should be 90 degrees apart. what this means is if you were standing in the center of a circle at eye level (which would look like a line)--the points would be one quarter of the circle apart. Which means for most things the vanishing points are off the page. Here's some very basic info on perspective: http://www.draw23.com/perspective
One thing that might help here is to show a very tiny bit of the top of the TV. The vanishing point for the TV seems to be in the center of the TV--but it seems higher for the floor which means the pov is looking down.