The Witches

I started working on my illustrations for The Witches. This illustration was a little different as the witch characters are quite sinister and scary. I took inspiration for the appearance of the witches from the film made in 1990, I remember watching this film when I was a kid and rally enjoying it. The witches were made disgusting but still appropriate fro young audiences. I need to try and find this balance in my work. I have drawn up some roughs using the witches hands as a cage fro the mice. I want to use bold colours for the characters to match the Roald dahl logo so I changed the witches skin colour to purple,

I like the witches face but the hands don't work, the shape of them isn't obvious enough. I am also not happy with the bottom heavy symmetrical composition of this piece. I tried making the witches head bigger but it didn't help. The mice don't have any human qualities in this illustration, I want them express human emotions and for their to be a connection between them. I think the colours need to be changed, they don't contrast enough, I want the mice to stand out against the colour of the witch. I think this image could work much better if it was a simpler colour scene with he witch acting as a dark background and mice standing out from the darkness.

Because I want all three illustrations to act as a set I added textures to see if it would improve the interaction between the characters. I don't think it has and I am still not happy with the composition. I thought about ways I could make the hands look more like hands and bring the mice closer together. I decided that the witch could be holding the mice as they cuddle together scared. This could help show the relationship between all three characters much more clearly.

I much prefer this composition, although it still needs some work, next I am going to make the witch darker and remake the mice out of torn paper, I should have though of this earlier, the rough edges will make them look furry and almost make them contrast with the hands. I need to change the tails so that they look like they are dangling down between the fingers of the witch. I need to design the mice so that they look more like they are embracing. Once I have made the colour of the witch darker I should be able to make the mice lighter and make them stand out. I am quite hopeful that these changes will make vast improvements to this illustration. I am going to back to the roughing stage and redraw the mice, I need find ways to communicate their emotion and friendship!!