CC7 - Young/Old

[Cuki]

First time in this forum, I found it through Gosia's Facebook page. 

Title: Visiting Grandma
Description of Scene: A small girl wearing a witch's hat and holding a wand, with a carpet bag beside her is standing on the path leading to a cottage, looking towards the door. Old, thin woman is standing at the door looking towards the girl, she is dressed modernly and is holding a phone. Both look surprised and embarrassed. Cottage is old fashioned with dark forest in the background. 


Contrasts: Old/new, young/old, little/tall?, round/skinny?

Story: A little witch is coming to visit grandma. Wanting to please her grandma she is trying hard to go old school with wooden wand, pointy hat etc. Grandma has opened the door to reveal a very modern appearance, holding a phone attached to VR goggles. 

Problems / Questions / Things to develop:
Whether to have both faces visible or have the girl facing away from the camera.
Need to figure out what mood lighting I want, currently it doesn't seem to be giving anything to the scene.
Currently the background isn't really giving anything to the mood. Narrative seems too plain and 1 dimensional. 

I'm currently favouring the 3rd thumbnail but worried about having a character facing away from the camera.

[Jun]

Welcome to the forums! :D

I think that the second thumbnail is a step in the right direction. You want to be intimate. I might even rotate the camera a little bit and ZOOM in more.

You see, all the space on the left is just pretty much empty. Nothing's going on there! It serves no purpose. It's void.

There's a lot that you might want to think when composing the image.
Where did the witch come from? where is the gate? How is the house and the lawn of the witch oriented? How is the next scene going to be?

But, before all that - What do you want the audience to feel? Do you want them to feel sad for the little witch whose expectations and dreams were shattered? Do you want them to feel angry that the grandma gave up on her and went all techy?

Think about all that, JOT THEM POINTS DOWN! And then go from there. It's a cute little concept seed, now go make a tree out of it!

[Vandall]

I adore the perspective in these thumbnails, the concept is strong just because its simple doesnt mean its not good and I think whatever lighting you pick will work well with it.

I often have problems with this

Whether to have both faces visible or have the girl facing away from the camera.

Sometimes its better to have them facing away if it makes it work better

[Cuki]

Thanks everyone for the welcomes and advice.
As Jun suggested I thought harder about what I wanted to convey and decided that by trying to be clever and mix old and new between both characters I was actually weakening the resulting image. Instead I decided to focus on stronger archetypes to create a stronger final work.

So here is my new concept.
Title: Visiting Grandma
Scene:
Little girl standing on path in front of house, looking nervous and starting to back away, having dropped her phone and bag. Standing in the doorway of the cottage, back lit is a scary, tall silhouette with the shadow coming down the path towards the little girl. On closer look the grandma in the doorway is not scary, just the silhouette. 
The main light source is a sunset coming from behind the girl with a second light behind the grandma from the door.

Contrast: old/young, dark/light, scary/cute?

Story: A girl is coming to visit her grandma but becomes scared by the figure in the doorway and wants to flee. 

Problems: Making sure the lighting keeps focus on the two figures and is realistic.
Making sure the grandma's silhouette is scary but not the details within the silhouette.
Girl's pose needs to be clearer.

Do you think this reads stronger?

[Piotr Jasielski]

Hey, welcome to the challenge!
I prefer the close-up versions more. Since the young character is facing away you should sell the age with her clothes so it would be clear it's a young person.

As for rendering, my piece of advice would be to try to simplify colors first, just like they do in cartoons, then work from that. This way the light/dark contrast should be more prominent.

Good luck!