Sketches and breakdown of Lyana Frostburn ATGPS page 09

I figured since its been a slow month, I'd do one of these (not sure if people like this kind of stuff...). I'm probably also doing a sketch dump this month to compensate for the lack of images. (This month was just a disaster with one thing after another hitting me and forcing me to spend time on it. Life goes on after all...)

Anyway, I'm working on the 9th page of the comic. Below is the first sketch I did (Mind you, this was done even before Miss Mason had a better face...)

The image I'm trying to create is one where Lyana is shown the valley where she will be kept as a ponygirl from now on. Other than that I wanted to show what Lyana now sees through her newly applied augmented reality lenses.

The image above does a terrible job showcasing this and it therefore needed a different composition.

I tried doing it the lazy way: Simply positioning the characters left and right and show the valley in between them. The first problem now becomes clear already: I would need to scale down the characters OR make the canvas bigger. I chose the latter and widened the image with about 33%

The view had to be far and wide, really showcasing how well intertwined Lyana's body has become with the area around her. This first (simple lines) setup was fun but the horizon is kind of too flat.

I tried to raise the horizon slightly, adding more gradual hills left and right to get a better look of the surroundings. I was happy with this but when I placed the characters in this image it felt just off... They felt like Giants compared to the background.

I therefore tried to bring everyhing closer, again using the gradual hills left and right to get a better view of the surroundings. Again I had fun working on this but now the image just lacks the view of the entire valley. I could add some mountains in the background but your eyes are drawn to the road leading away from the characters and its going too steep upwards in my opinion.

I decided to raise the characters to a sort of platform, overlooking the valley from a distance and bring the horizon of the background up higher in the image. I was much happier with this although I realized, the valley is given too little credit in this image. About 50% are the characters and the other 50% is given to the valley. It's not bad... but given that I want to showcase a large valley where Lyana's vision lets us know how she views things from now on... it again felt too small.

I widened the image with another 25% and I think it now does a much better job telling both Lyana's story and that of the valley. Make no mistake, it still needs work since there are still some roads I want to add and some workers and ponygirls here and there (a depiction of the daily activities taking place here).

Personally I'm much happier with this but I also know this will take some time to finish. Just for the sake of simplicity, I might split the characters and background creation entirely. (That way my PC isn't going into 200% turbo mode with all the 300 layers I got going on....)

I'm trying to finish this before the 30th of October but no promises.

- Lerra why are you so slow?

A: I'm following a new diet (keto diet) and the first few weeks are apparently the worst (as I have experienced. It sucks away my energy completely as I try to go from a carb burning body to a fat burning body...) Other than that I already listed a few things. Sickness, birthday party, cleaning the mold in my house and saturday my grandfather died (we were not that close so it won't affect work much) but I will still attend his cremation next thursday.

Let me know what you think of the image/sketch and if I could've done things different/better. I'm still learning so any feedback is welcome!

Have a nice day everyone!