Group source question: This is the pencil rough for an owlbear drawing. It has three elements. The owl bear. The scroll. The weapons. I’m not sold on the weapons. But I know it definitely needs another element. Replace the weapons with something else? Add another element? Amplify the scroll? What would you do?
Gives me heraldic vibes, I like it. Maybe lean into that? Perhaps add a shield like contour to bring it together, or play around with other heraldic elements.
The heraldic vibe is definitely the right vibe.
I’m not suuuuper familiar with owlbears, so I’m going solely by composition. Since the scroll is very orderly (centered, not tilted or anything), have you considered arranging the weapons more geometrically, too? Personally, I’m thinking rays, where the heads are symmetrically spaced to imply an oval, and the handles all angle from the same point (warning: this will draw the eye there). Making any kind of decorative pattern with them might work, though!
For the weapons I went with a center point just below the scroll because an oval centered on the central figure wouldn’t leave much room on this A5 paper for the large blades.
I am leaning towards some decorative pattern at this point.
Owlbears are wilderness creatures. Perhaps foliage and small fauna?
I did seriously consider that. Problem is that I didn’t leave enough space in the bottom of the page. I thought about including a nest with some eggs in it. But the room really not there. I can put foliage behind it but I feel any foliage would overpower the portrait nature of the goal. Any fauna would add extra difficulty because it would have to be visibly dead. Because owlbear.
That’s true. What of you used it just/mostly outlined, fully black? Like the owlbear is coming out of dense woods and behind it is a bunch of bushes that aren’t being lit because there are big trees shadowing them. That would pull the eye towards the lit bear.
You could use tropical foliage, for its distinctive features. Like adding a few leaves like that in the outline or even not completely blacked out would transport the viewer to a dense, impenetrable jungle.
I’ll look but tropicals typically have large broad leaves and there may not be any space for them to be recognizable.
Personally the weapons look a bit too small to me. I feel like there’s too much negative space between them, and they need to be bigger or there needs to be more of them (or both). Possibly even a sword/weapon backdrop sort of like the GoT throne
Great work so far though!
The original goal was a portrait idea. So making the elements other than the central figure bigger or more prominent kinda goes against that idea. Making the weapons bolder would detract from the focal point figure.
Maybe keep the weapons the same size and add some amorphous background design between them to make the Owlbear pop more?
