Snow Queen sketch

I doodled a bit for the "assignment" today and came up with this so far.


I guess I'm thinking in terms of like a book cover or a poster instead of a straight out scene. I know I won't have time to spend on a complicated background, and I like adding a bit of designy things to what I draw. And as you also all probably know by now I like to keep things simple and clean.

So the story of the Snow Queen involves her taking this boy, and there's actually very few scenes of either of them in the story. Mostly it follows a girl going through several trials to find and rescue him. The boy and the girl are very close friends, but one day the boy gets some evil mirror shards in his eye and heart that make him act like a jerk and see only ugliness (the black eye and heart up there represent that). He sort of accidentally follows the Snow Queen until she takes him to her palace. In the end the girl rescues him and the shards fall out and yay happy ending!

Art-wise I didn't do any other real sketches for layout ideas so I might not go this way at all, but I wanted to start on something. I like the idea of bits of pure white and silhouetting pieces of the characters totally in white so you definitely get the "snow" part of it. What I ultimately want to do is paint sections of the piece more realistically, such as their faces, her hair, the staff/crown, and robe, etc. Those parts would be fully rendered with shadows and highlights, etc, which would be an interesting contrast to the stark white of the rest of the background.

Now that I'm looking at it again I dunno if I'll keep that orange circle in the background. It might make them look too warm and welcoming, though I like the color combination and the characters would still have orange highlights. I'll probably change it to another blue color, and I might even do the same to the staff and crown, so that the boy's yellow hair will really stand out. I'm also unsure on her left arm, since it forms kind of a weird lump, and I also wonder if having the staff go behind of her dress wouldn't be better than in front like it is now....

I also added some texture for some interest, and the title is definitely not final. I might move it closer to the black heart and incorporate that in some way.