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@hugolotter
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4yr
added comment inLightbox 2021 Portfolio Reviews
Hi! Im Hugo, im a second year animation student from switzerland and im trying to learn as much as possible to be animation-industry ready when I graduate! I would really like to work in feature or tv animation and im trying to focus on Layouts and Background design.
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4yr
Hey Hugo - thanks for sharing!
I think this is a very well focused and curated porfolio. Would easily catch the attention of anyone hiring for layout/background work. Nice! My main comment is that I think you could work on pushing the lighting, to help service the focal point. Specifically, I think these are being hampered a bit by refusing to lose too much information in shadow. I think you'd benefit from letting your shadows eat up large chunks of information, but then hyper-focus that in the light instead!
Paul Felix's work is really testament to the power of this. Here's a quick Google search I just did that brought up a lot of good results:
https://www.google.com/search?q=paul+felix+pencil+art&rlz=1C1CHBD_enCA852CA852&sxsrf=AOaemvLTlmvK7N4MFX8adQ5gjT1jjXXffg:1631321272963&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwin4PSn2fXyAhUBFVkFHV0gDX4Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1344&bih=759
Notice how he's really lumping light and shadow shapes together into clear families. And about 99% of the time, the information is targeted toward the light family (as our eyes are used to seeking out light for information; that is, we don't look to the darks for information primarily.) So doing that in your work plays to already-existing human tendencies, and can make your art stronger.
You can try this in basically every image you've shared here. As a specific example, the palm leaves in the first one. Instead of showing the viewer the contours of each leaf like that, try clumping the shadowed leaves into more subtle areas of lost & found shapes. But the leaves that are catching light - those are the ones that need to be kept sharp!
Give it a try - I think it'll really help your stuff!
Marco