Game poster - Feedback please!

[Jakemono]

This was supposed to be a game poster for 5-10 year olds, and the theme was a winter olympic feat animals. It had to have two animals with a track etc on the background. I only used pictures of live animals as ref, and it's the first time that I make a complete illustration that contains animals.

I also made a storyboard for the game intro animation:
http://jakemono.deviantart.com/art/Winte...-444296732

Any feedback appreciated!

[Madzia]

hey Jakemono, welcome in CD! Using references is really important but I doubt that you found picture of badger making V :D For humanized creature don't forget to also look for human references.
The shading looks artificial, like made with photoshop blending options, especially on badger. And you have a lot of Tangents in your lines. Check this link to see what I mean http://blog.drawn.ca/post/13752763449/du...o-spotting
Symmetrical composition is quite boring, it supposed to be sport poster. Sport is action, I would personally pick more dynamic composition for this one.

[Jakemono]

Thanks for the feedback Madzia! This one is for a 3d animation school and the criteria of evaluation were making it look as 3d as possible - thats why the style of shading, their expressiveness and personality, how well the poster would work as an ad and the skills shown on chosen platform.

I had a very hard time picking the composition. My first ideas had them skiing and snowboarding looney tunes style next to eachother. The problem was that a background of a competition track or area was required, and it was hard to make it look like a winter olympics game rather than a downhill skiing game if I just put a mountain at the back.

So I opted for ski jumping, which is a very traditional kind of wintersport unlike snowboarding, and I tried to have some golden section setups where the skijumping lip was on the background. The problem was that it had way too much empty space like that, so I decided to put them on the skijumping lip instead. I put the badger to the left and bit higher up altho hes bigger to avoid the symmetry issue and to keep a sense of the golden section in there, but I agree that it's pretty faint.

I do agree with everything you said, especially the dynamic composition part. I just couldn't come up with one that would make sense as an olympic style wintersport game, or without favouring one of the characters with the camera distance :( And thanks for the tangent link, I havent got the eyes to pick them up in a picture like this!

[Amit Dutta]

I think style wise you are nailing the look fairly well though check out the rendering on the mario ones in particular below, I think you need to look at more gradation in the shadow areas to define the 3d volume and give more of that 3d look as well. When you have troubles with anything fundamental always always go to reference to save the day and give you ideas. Compositions, perpective, poses etc. As it is a game cover you can go with montages more than a one scene illustration. It might make more sense especially for a multi game sports game. And use the actual olympic colours too...every symbol counts to making it instantly readable.

[Jakemono]

I had no idea about these games even existing and I feel like a bit of a fool for not checking them out... Very good points throughout! I feel like I could do a ton better after your post. Thank you so much!

[ChantalFournier]

I thing I would add some kind of gradient to the track close to their feet to imply that the sun is not hitting it at the same angle as it's hitting the steep part.

And just because it's 3d doesn't mean that the nose and claws shouldn't be clossy and have speculars. An exemple of excelent texture on a 3d poster is Surf's up (with some Paul Lasaine work, look him up!)

[Jakemono]

I thing I would add some kind of gradient to the track close to their feet to imply that the sun is not hitting it at the same angle as it's hitting the steep part.

And just because it's 3d doesn't mean that the nose and claws shouldn't be clossy and have speculars. An exemple of excelent texture on a 3d poster is Surf's up (with some Paul Lasaine work, look him up!)

Agreed, I still havent studied textures at all and it shows :/ Right now tho, I have to focus on drawing cartoons and comics to get into this school... Thanks for the feedback!