I’ve had tremendous fun thinking up ideas for new creatures. Recently a friend was drawing a marine iguana, the bizarre and fascinating coastal-dwelling lizard that if you haven’t checked out already I highly recommend doing so. As a result of this, I showed my friend the above picture that I drew a few years ago.After doing so I realised that I could so a better version of it.
Points To Improve
I thought it would be useful to start off by making a few notes about things I could change and improve. Here’s what I came up with.
The cat’s face looks a little too dog-like!
The cat is below the horizon line, I also think the rock to the right of it is unnecessary and distracts from the cat.
Although there are some bright colours on the cat, the marine iguana is also quite colourful and catches attention away from the cat. As the iguana is not the focal point of the cartoon, it could be made duller.
I think the cat blends with the sea a little too much, so I want to make it stand out more.
I’m not sure that looks like a marine iguana!
The New Version
Here’s the new version of the cartoon I came up with. I went over the following points.
I moved the cat above the horizon line. I also had it perched more on the top of the rock.
I removed the rock that was originally to the right of the cat so as to give the character more room to stand out.
I added some brighter, concentrated colours to the cat, and also some darker tones to add contrast and also to help the brighter ones to really catch the eye.
I dulled down the marine iguana considerably. I also used a reference image when redrawing it so that it looks more realistic.
The body of the iguana is now pointing towards the cat.
The cat looks more catlike.
Over To You
Take a look over some of you own cartoons. Is that one that you really like the idea of, but doesn’t look quite right? Look over the following points and see if they help you to identify points to change. It may help you to make notes from your drawing, as I did previously.
Could the character be in a better position?
Is there enough contrast between dark and light, bright and dull colours?
Is the attention going towards your main character, or is something distracting the viewer’s eye away from it?