These were five small illustrations of children, each showing (some in grisely detail) them dealing with certain situations in their lives. Please read the poems beneath each picture because they give each piece a deeper meaning.
Jon
Danielle
Billy
Kelly
Timmy
Thanks.
i think the poems are great but the drawings lack impact.
It is a question of picking a direction perhaps.
I feel they either need to be cleaner/flatter or that the backgrounds need more depth to add some atmosphere. I am having a problem with the colors you have chosen as well, sort of dull but it doesn’t seem like that was a choice you made… they are not doing it for me. i can’t help but feel that if you went for a more extreme flattness (no brush strokes or draw marks) that these would become more shocking… or… if you went for more texture more expressive lines showing, splatters etc all over the drawing that it would take these images over the top.
AHHH! I’m sorry! that’s scary!
Try using contrast in colors to focus on the scary parts? Like darkening the scene sliigghhttllyy except for the scary stuff? ahhhh I cant imagine, it’s all creepy, heh
Hmmm… creepy sick demented. The peoms and images work well in that direction and the message is loud and clear.
Har dto know what to say. Perhaps – if you want to make sure you get the message over rather then just have people tell you to run, not walk, to see a therapist 
… then you could try to styalize the images – say black and white sketchy – or bright colour cartoony – whatever, so the style is a counterpoint to the message.
Love the poems, but I might get creepy dreams tonight… 
Timmy would be much more emotive if there was a teardrop running down one side of his face. Right now it doesnt make me feel anything.
The one who ate his hand was really creepy. Took a while to realise what it is, but once I did… creepy…
I pretty much agree with all of your comments. The poems were finished after each character was drawn. If it was done the other way around I’m sure they wouldn’t have been drawn so cleanly. I really wanted to have these illustrations that when first seen would cause the viewer to question what the hell was going on. The art could exist by itself but the poems add the background that in some cases make the drawing a lot darker, ie. Billy and Timmy.
I chose not to continue drawing characters like that with additional poetry because I wanted these 5 to stick out from the rest of my work. I’ve gotten requests to do more, but I’m not sure if I could even duplicate the effects the first 5 had on people.
Again, thanks for the comments and views…too bad there aren’t as many comments as views (since that’s what counts) but I’m not complaining!
Instead of poems telling a story, just little story blurbs to go along with the pictures. The poem I liked best was about the kid eating his arm, but the image is much more evokative than the poem.
My original idea was to have one story in which each child had a small part. The whole thing would be “narrated” by another child who happened to be doing things to everyone else but this wasn’t know until the end.
Once the individual poems were written I fell in love with the singles characters and didn’t follow the original plan.
I have another short story in my head, I posted links somewhere on cgtalk, I just have to find them and post them here…they too might qualify as evocative.
Do you know Edward Gorey’s Gashleycrumb Tinies?
It’s a brilliant group of illustrations of little kids being offed in various mishaps. That’s what I thought of when I saw these… 
Anyway, I kinda don’t see these figures as children - they look like they could be stylized adults, the way they’re drawn. And this is just a personal reaction, I know other people might go for these as is - but in a way, the poems don’t actually add much to the image. Er…or maybe the images don’t add much to the poems. Both poems and images have the same grim, heavy tone.
The poems are well written, in fact might be better than the drawings at present - and as such, might stand on their own, w/out the illustrations. I think the drawings should offer up something unexpected, something that gives us more information about the scene than what’s described in the poems…
I admire what you’re trying to do here - it’s a tough thing to make word and image successfully complement each other. Looking forward to seeing your next pass on these…
I like your poems and the stylized drawings, but I do agree with the others about the pictures not having as much affect as they could have. The stories are sick and demented - remember I did say I liked them - HOWEVER you used rhyme to tell them. I usually equate rhyme with children and games. You could use this same odd mix with your pictures. The gore with more campy pictures; maybe use happy colors. To fully understand what I mean, you might want to visit this website: http://www.happytreefriends.com. They place cute cartoon animals in dangerous situations (there is a lot of gore, but it’s funny). Anyhow, I’ve just expanded on Snowell’s comment, but I thought giving you the link might show you how far you can take the bright cartoony idea. I’d like to see you try them again!
When I first did the pencil sketches I didn’t have individual poems in mind but did have some kind of narractive going on. After the the pictures were scanned, printed out and watercolored, then the poems were written.
I might someday go back and digitally color them in Painter, but right now I’m trying to concentrate on newer projects.
Anyway, thanks for all of your comments and views. I’ll be posting more art on my new site vagrantaesthetic.com. Just give me some time, I only bought it on Wednesday!!
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