this is an attempt to create an fantasy illustration of an barbarian and his animalcompanion for my portfolio.
It feels like the overal composition and values aren´t readable enough and I got problem to make sense of the fur on the bear and the shouldercloak of the barbarian (maybe leave the cloak out for a better read?).
I´d really love to push this further, but don´t know how to do this without just redoing the whole values.
Tipps and tricks how to improve the values and composition would be awesome.
I've done a paint over for you, there are still anatomical issues with the barbarian that need working on but I will explain what I've done - so compositionally wise you have a sort of middle triangular thing going on, the main problem is your image isn't popping as the values are too similar that are next to each other.
So you want to think about light on dark and dark on light this will enhance your value use and make the image pop more. I have darkened the value of the bear to make it a black bear this in turn pops out the lighter values of the barbarian. In the places that there are dark values try putting lighter values next to them, you can use your imagination with this and add in some sort of background imagery like trees etc if you want to, it can add a little more interest and help compositionally if not over done.
Your light source was coming from the left but was inconsistent with the values so I've adjusted that.
You also had a lot of empty space so I have changed the height of the bear and barbarian to fill more of the space, the bears body now is behind the barbarians arms also so it pops them out to. Don't be afraid to break the black border you have also you can get some cool effects, hope that helps you some :), keep having fun!
