Project One (con't): compositing our initial elements

Now that we have drawn our gator, island and tree it's time to put them together to form the initial composition.  Backgrounds will be added as we decide we like the direction things are going thus far.

Here's how I put our first three elements together...

There's a couple of things going on here.  First, my original little island was a little too robust and mound-like so I flattened it.  You might be asking (especially if you aren't that familiar with digital drawing), "How do you 'flatten' a drawing?"

SketchBook Pro has a pretty good tool for transforming drawn objects but it's limited to 4 directions: fatter, slimmer, taller, shorter.  I flattened and widened the island a bit to get the proportions right.

[The cat's pajamas for transformation tools is Photoshop.  Lawd almighty... there ain't nuthin' you cain't do with that program.]

I had to make Wally the right size in relation to the island and tree and, although I can't center him exactly, I did move him more to the center so that he's the focal point of our composition.  The tree looks small by comparison, certainly a lot smaller than the one in our video capture...but a Golden Book is a whole different look than a cartoon.  For Golden Books you have to maintain a pretty obvious center of interest.

Also, I red-lined the water edge of the island a bit as a reference to keep it more symmetrical in relation to the water and the tree.

I have some ideas about the background; it'll look a little different than the video capture.  That will be tomorrow night's project.

Until then...