tjost wrote:I like the concept on this but there's a couple things to point out. First it took me a while to identify the peanut butter and chocolate, then to see the combos that didn't work in the background.
First, thanks for taking the time to crit this. I just wrapped up an 80 hour work week and wanted to squeeze a design in before my next week of crazy deadlines starts. Hopefully I'll be able to find time to make some adjustments.
I really wanted the gag to be there without hitting you over the head with it. In the end I do think the joke could stand to be more apparent
Second is there a reason he's proportioned like a monkey, I can see making him of small stature but I don't get the really short legs and really long arms.
Just a stylistic choice. I enjoy oddly proportioned cartoons.
Third, and this is more a style point, why is the tank on the right have shadow banding on the reflective metal parts when the one on the left doesn't, they both look like the same structure to me and I can't see anything that would block light in that pattern around the tank?
Deadline fatigue. I just totally spaced out on that. I make the highlights in big blocks and go back in with the local color and add the core shadows. I just neglected to add those.
I think if you make the chocolate peanut butter a littler larger (as well as the stuff on the back table) fix his proportions (or just shorten his arms, and fix the lighting on the tanks you'll have a really strong piece. Good job though so far 
To add to my previous comment, the more I look at it I think you may have too much going on in the background too, maybe loose the tanks altogether, recenter main character and enlage the whole image so details aren't lost.
I'll try to do another with less bg elements and a bigger figure and see how that plays.
