Illustration updates part 2

I’ve been trucking along with the illustration process and have completed the two I wrote about in my last post (all completed illustrations can be found on my gallery page). I’m working on one new illustration currently: a scene in which the coyote character is getting chastised in a council meeting. Here is an excerpt of the scene:

“We need to do whatever we can to protect ourselves and our children,” said Chirich, hackles raised.

“That’s enough!” said the hare, banging his gavel repeatedly on the podium.  In response, Chirich snarled at him, showing pointed white teeth. 

“Look at yourself!” spat the hare. “You’re out of control. You’re no better than the savages at our borders. You are a disgrace.”

The rest of the assembly was scandalized, muttering. Chirich looked left and right, suddenly afraid.

The scene goes on with the humiliation and intimidation of the coyote.

With the image, I wanted to convey the sense of the character being castigated by an authority. I thought it could be especially visually striking to portray because the roles of predator and prey are flipped in the scene, with the hare acting as the authority who is capable of utter domination over this coyote.

I found this wonderful reference for the pose:

I wasn’t sure what kind of creature this was when I found the image but a reverse image search says this is a red fox. But the pose was just so extreme and evocative and I loved the triangular composition. When searching for references, I could find many expressive poses from foxes and wolves, but comparatively few of actual coyotes. When searching for “coyote with ears pinned back” you mainly get cocked ears, not expressions of fear. I guess coyotes are pretty stoic animals. But hey, it’s my book, I can fudge reality in whatever way I want.

To attempt to make the image look more like a coyote, I beefed up the body proportions and lengthened the snout slightly. Colouring was slightly challenging as coyotes tend to be a mix of white, tan, and gray. I took some creative liberties, simplifying the colours with tannish legs and a gray body.

I liked how the coyote turned out, but this illustration wasn’t working for me in the way that I wanted. The emotion of the image, one creature subservient to another, wasn’t coming through. Unsurprisingly, t’s a little bit hard to make a hare look intimidating. This was the reference I was using:

I felt that there was something sinister about the eyes, but when I put it on paper that really didn’t come through. Looking back at a sketches I had done, the emotion of the image came through way better when the hare was posed more intimidatingly, was proportionally bigger in the composition, and had a bigger gavel.

So I scrapped my first attempt and started on a fresh page. Here is the updated composition:

I am hoping this works better.

As for other updates, I’ve finished the draft edits (mainly just cutting stuff out; I went from 59,000 to 52,000 words). I have sent a draft to a few volunteers to read and give me some feedback, and will hopefully be implementing that feedback in October. I have lined up a professional developmental editor and will hopefully get her a draft by the end of October.