Kasper - John's advice

Here's the JohnK thumbnail I'm working on:

It took me several tries before I even started to understand this drawing, but I've come to love it.

There's a lot going on here.

The main point of this drawing is the anticipation as Kaspar prepares to penetrate the man sock with his oversize foot and overgrown toenails. In my first few tries (which I'm not going to post), I kept leaning the bear backwards. After all, the pose doesn't make sense - he's off balance. Well guess what? It lost all its energy when I did that. I finally realized that the composition consists mainly of lines that point directly to the target sock.

Secondly, there's Kaspar's delight in anticipation of the destruction and its effect on the sock owners. He's looking over his shoulder at the humans sleeping in bed. But, unlike an earlier thumbnail where he's pawing through the sock drawer and looking back at the bed, here he is NOT being sneaky. He's relishing his naughtiness. He's thinking, "Just wait till they find this!"

Here's another attempt, which I then marked corrections on.

John K commented on another person's attempts: "Good, but all the contrasts have been way toned down." I can see that I'm guilty of that too. Especially the face, which is too big. Kaspar should look big and stupid because his head is smaller than his torso. Also, he's supposed to be as wide as he is tall (from certain angles). I've made him much too thin above.

Below is another go that I finished this morning. Still far from great but it does correct some of the problems above.

The face is tricky because, while the expression on the original is great, the scribbles don't quite make sense.

I think I did a pretty good job keeping the life of the expression while correcting the mistakes, but I'd like to try again and make it both looser and a bit stronger. I'm not sure about this but I think of Kaspar's face as being somewhat concave, or at least flat, especially in the area of the eyes, unlike your basic ball-shaped Preston Blair head. This makes him look stupid.

I deliberately pushed the nose and muzzle out a bit from the original; I just think that's where they belong.

I tried to remember the contrasts. The tail is hilarious because it's so small. The head/face is about the right size, I think. I redrew the closer leg several times because I kept wanting to make it fatter, but it's funnier being so small compared to the body it supports.

I actually made the sock a bit smaller than John's, because I think the contrast is funny. But obviously the sock can't be too small, for clarity.

My hands and feet suck, however. John commented to someone else, "Try just doing the toes like the rough to see if you follow me. More organic and varied shapes-yet still following the form and the way the toes radiate out." I'm thinking about that as I draw but it still isn't coming out right.

Otherwise pleased with myself, I did the photoshop comparison: Crap, I got the leg completely wrong.