Wholesome Promo

This last week I spent a little time working on an art piece to enter into a competition and selected the "Wholesome" category. I've already shared this in a few places, but not on here yet. It also gave me an opportunity to show how I got to the finished image.

Where did the idea come from? When I decided on this category I figured most entries were going to be some couple cuddling or a variation of. I wanted something different, and there's not much more wholesome than a bunch of cute animals.

I've heard of animal shelters holding "Play Days" where it gives them a chance to get the animals out and play with anyone who wants to show up. That seemed like a good enough place to start for me!

Attached is the final image plus 3 progress images (labeled in the upper left corners).

1) Pretty ugly, right? That's how a lot of scenes start... Got the rough placement of the characters, and I knew I was still missing the extra dog for Ashley. This was to get a look at sizing/positioning before realizing I needed the girls closer to the camera.

2) Added the dog, moved the camera, and adjusted everyone's poses. I had an idea what I wanted the white kitten to do, but didn't like how it was going to turn out and decided I'd scrap it. I also noticed that Ashley's face wasn't lit up enough. Since the two girls were going to be in the camera's focus, I needed the light through the tree to not cast shadows directly on their faces.

3) Did major change to lighting and background, added in the grass, the animals got hair, gave white kitten a new pose, and added the Play Day sign. Here is where I knew I was close and showed it around to family over the weekend. I had a few things I wanted to change, but they gave me a few more I didn't think about (most notably giving Jay a toy in his hand so it looked like the dog wasn't attacking him).

Final) A lot of fine tuning was made everywhere. I adjusted the dog in Ashley's arms to the side so its face was more visible while its licking her. Jay is now holding a ball and the dog tackling him looks like he's on a mission for it. The kitten on Kayla's shoulder was adjusted slightly so you could see it was licking her finger and not trying to bite it. And the kitten attacking her shoelaces was turned a little so you could see its head a little clearer.

This promo image had a LOT going on. There were many details to pay attention to while getting it as realistic as I could in my timeframe.

And doing this was beneficial in other ways. It gave me a reason to experiment with animals, and I found out I loved this grass more than any other I've used before. It's very heavy to use resource-wise, but when I have some closeup scenes on the ground in the future... I know I have something ready to make it look good.

-ckr