River Dance Dance!

A thumbnail I crafted recently (was it yesterday? it really shouldn't be this hard to remember yesterday, should it?).

  

             

<digress>I need to make a few changes to Madstone (per the "customer's" request. Honestly, who is this guy?) I figured I'd use the tracing paper approach. Well, that is once I get some tracing paper. In the mean time, I was itching to draw something else and this thumbnail was as far as I got.</digress>

I drew that on roughly half a post-it note so needless to say, I spent all of three (or less) minutes satisfying my art-hunger. It's not a whole lot to look at, but I was just having a go at creating a composition. You know, thumb nailing.

What's that supposed to be? So glad you asked that question. It's an attempt to compose my favourite scene from Daruna (a table top rpg campaign played amongst friends, documented on the fantastic blog "Random Diversions").

This is my attempt to put together an interesting, high energy depiction of the river attack.  You're looking at a barge with a mud creature clinging to the bow. On the left is an archer attempting to save the bargemen. On the right is another would be rescuer, sprinting across the water's surface via an enchanted helm, a length of rope trailing out behind him. In the distance beyond the barge one can just make out a village.

I know i's a stretch, but hello... less than three minutes.

I can already see some problems.

• The archer is rotated way too far. He's going to be shooting parallel to the barge, not at the mud creatures climbing on it.
• The water walker (name: Orca) is too small. Based on the archers head and the horizon, Orca needs to eat a super mushroom. Just ask Andrew Loomis (see image below).
• There needs to be more urgency in the picture.

As for the last issue, maybe rotating the barge a little and adding some super panicked sailors would help. I'm not entirely sure. But that's the great thing about thumb nails - crank out a bunch out and see what happens.

 On the bright side, I think the major elements are lining up near the thirds of the picture, which typically creates a stronger composition.

Andrew Loomis, Figure Drawing For All It's Worth, pg. 37