story sketch: feather blessed [update: 08-11-2011]

[meeks]

This is a sketch of the Feather-Blessed series of stories by wyld_dandelyon, in which best friends Grace and Stella become dragons with the help of a magical feather and find themselves stranded in the local lake when the feather turns out to have insufficient magic to transform two girls and guide them to their new home.

cleaned up sketch:


rough sketch:

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Comments

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Definitely kill the dissolve on the rachis (quill) of the feather. That part has a crisp edge naturally. The plumes at the base and the main vanes can be fuzzy or crisp, depending on the creature the feather comes from. I actually like the dissolve effect, but it makes the design difficult to parse, especially on the lower left-hand portion. Sharpening that definition would help a lot. Another thing that threw me is the rachis doesn't continue through the whole feather, only the quill end shows. You wouldn't want to do much with it or it would distract from the dragons, but just a faint dark line might help.

I've done feathercrafts so I know how feathers look and work. That makes a difference. If feasible, I recommend getting a real feather to use as a reference. People actually paint scenes onto feathers, and you're close to that effect, but not quite there yet.

I think full color would make this complicated scene easier to read, but you're right about the warming effect of the sepia too.

On the whole, though, I really like this picture. I am so pimping this for comments. I want to see it refined!

Re: Hmm...

[meeks]

Thank you for being so specific! That helps a lot. I will try to find an actual breast feather to look at so I can make the one in the picture more convincing.

Re: Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad I could help! This just happened to be a case where I knew the subject matter really well, so could be extra specific.