FINALLY! I finished drawing and writing up my notes for this last CHARACTER MENTOR (my next book) assignment- #6!

If you will remember, I gave out the assignment to use my prince and princess characters, Megan and Adam [link] and the template I provided [link] to create two different shots showing the same moment/situation but from two different viewpoints: Character-Driven and Story- Driven.

I gave this scene description: “Megan and Adam are running through the forest singing to each other. They are starting to like each other. They both do not notice the pit Adam is about to fall into.”

I chose Andrew Chandler's submission for this assignment!

Here's my Mentor Notes on this assignment:

Artist Andrew Chandler created this assignment, and I have to say, he did a great job. Many people submitted art for this assignment and Andrew’s really stood out because of the level of draftsmanship he brought to the drawing but also because of the different angles he chose for each example. He thought through this assignment and came up with TWO DESTINCT SOLUTIONS - which was the point of this assignment. I have fewer notes on his work because he accomplished the broad strokes of the assignment. I am addressing notes that I think he can consider for the future to strengthen his work. They are the following:

Panel 1- Character-Driven Point-Of-View: A couple issues that stand out to me as I look at Chandler’s Panel 1 are that his layout is very symmetrical (with the characters grouped together in the middle of the shot) and that the idea of Adam about to fall into the hole isn’t as clear as it could be. Because this is the Character-driven perspective panel, I expect that the characters singing to each other, falling in love, would be the main focus BUT I do want to see a hint of the impending fall. So, because of that, I created a layout in my version of Panel 1 that places the characters in positions that 1) is more asymmetrical (even the angle of the fallen tree no longer is in the middle of the shot) and 2) shows Adam clearly (part of his foot is behind the log) about to make a mistake- with a bit more of an indication of a trench to the right, also. Note that I added a foreground tree to the left, a mid-ground tree to Adam’s right and trees behind them spaced at different angles to establish more depth and asymmetrical design to the background.

Panel 2- Story-Driven Point-Of-View: Andrew’s Panel 2 solutions work so well that I didn’t change his angle. My only artistic suggestions here were concerning clarifying the character’s interaction and the fact that Adam is about to fall into a huge trench. Again, in Andrew’s Panel 2, its not very clear that he is about to fall so in my sketch I made sure to place him over to the right more with her more to the left, aligned with the fallen tree. Lastly, I designed the background to have a larger clearing in the section where are heroes are, to make them stand out more. If this was a storyboard panel, you want them to really stand out. I did place them in the middle of the panel (as did Andrew), because it seemed like an acceptable situation to break the RULE OF THIRDS for reasons of clarity. I want to establish the scene- the forest background and the huge trench to the bottom right, so that leaves the middle of the scene as the clearest area to frame the characters.

Thank you, Andrew; you did an excellent job on this assignment.