Lemma Soft Forums

Hello , I'm working on a Visual Novel (I'm still at the very beginning). I drew some characters:

Zach Peeters:

Hmn... His arms are awfully drawn. Should his shoulders be more wider? Should I redraw this?

Caroline Auen:

I like how this came out! But unlike Zach this is actually the third time I'm drawing her .

Fairies:
(Forget the image size, they are actually very small compared to the human characters).

^ This one is painted but lacks shadows and shines.


What do you people think? Feel free to critic. I seriously need to improve .

oh wow, i love your style <3
i love the chubbiness and the soft rounded edges. it makes it look real cute and plush ouo

not sure what i could say, 'sept maybe, the last one looks a bit off from the legs, and the feet need working one o3o

Awwwwww, your style is so cute~ I love them. The lady is lovely. If you are doing a VN it may help to actually do character sheets so you have something to refer to as you draw. And you may have noticed, the more you draw them, the better and more consistent they will be!

For the guy, technically you can have whatever width sholders you want, it depends on the impression you want to give. Personally I would widen them just a tiny bit more, just to give him a bit more prescence. I think he will keep his softness as well, he seems like a nice person. I want to move his jaw in a bit, his cheek is a bit fat. And his pose isn't bad, I don't immediatly think it is off. His left (our left, his right) arm should probably be tucked into his side a little more. When in doubt, do the pose yourself in the mirror. It helps

Otherwise, it is great work, I really like it. I wish you luck on your project!

I don't mind chibi and chubby drawing style... but it's strange to see fairy with thin arms but big and muscular legs. Perhaps this is your style, but perhaps making the legs more slender will make them cuter?

I really like your style - very soft and rounded. I really like the face of the character in the first drawing - he seems like a pretty cool, laid back sort of guy. His hands look a bit too small, though.
I agree that the legs are off in the last drawing. It looks like right leg (that is, her right - our left) can't possibly be connected to her body when it's placed that far out. It probably needs to be a bit closer to the other leg.
Overall, you've got some really nice, quirky character designs here, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with them. Good luck!

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I'd say you should practice drawing legs with posemaniacs. That site has done wonders for the anatomy of my characters.

Without knowing much of the style/theme of the work:

I like the style of the guy and the faries a lot, they are very quirky, which adds uniqueness and charm.

However, following this trend makes the girl a problem. She is just too pretty/perfect/generic and feels
out of theme with the other ones. Technique-wise she is clearly the most accomplished drawing,
but she strays too far from the others, and I like the others more.

Thanks everyone for all the comments ♥ .
I think I will go to posemaniacs site to practice my anatomy.
The Visual Novel I'm working on is about fairy hunters .

Ahah, the human girl (Caroline) sure looks a bit out of place compared to the guy (Zach). She has a very anime-esque style. I'm going to redraw Zach for sure. Here's the drawing painted:


Now the human-like characters might not be hard to draw even though they have some flaws, but what's seriously getting on my nerves is the MAP!!

It's incomplete.
I need a big help here... The perspective is a big fat failure! The only thing that looks good are maybe the trees. I tried to finish this up but I just can't paint the houses properly! The fact that I have only a mouse doesn't help me either (no tablet). I think I will just go for traditional methods and just use water colors or acrylics to paint .

The map is common in many VNs, it's where the player selects where he wants to go. It's kind of sad I can't draw maps at all :'( .

For your map, you should get some reference photos. You should be able to google up a couple of images of towns and that that have been taken at a similar perspective. That will help you a lot. That being said, since you don't have a particularly realistic style, you could have a bit of fun with perspective and make it a bit quirky if you wanted, but that is a stylistic choice. I think you are doing really well with a mouse by the way ^^

Don't stress too much about what you can't do. See what you can and take advantage of it. Art is the struggle of the artist and his/her limitation. You have a quirky theme going on, use it. Charles M. Schulz openly admitted he couldn't draw, yet he rolled with what he could do, and now we have Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of them.

I think your drawings are awesome! As everyone's said, your style is really unique and pleasing. The round edges make for a really soft feeling.

Caroline (the girl) looks REALLY cute, and I love the color scheme you picked for her, but she seems to be leaning a bit to the left. Her face seems a bit off-center as well. If you're right handed, that's a common thing to happen (it happens to me all the time. ^^;;)

Zach's shoulders are a bit small. Remember that a head should be able to fit on each shoulder. His hands seem a bit small as well - a trick I use is to make the hand about as big as the face. As for his elbows, make sure that they rest at his waist. The tips of the fingers should be end a little past the crotch.

Your eyes and pencil work are spectacular. In general, you have a really good handle on line-weight.

The legs on the second fairy seem a BIT too bit. I can understand having cute, chubby legs, but slimming them a bit might help them look more natural. Right now, they seem too large to come out of her hips.

I hope this helped. ^^ Just some tips (you probably already know a lot of this stuff ._.) to keep in mind.

Can't wait to see more of your progress!

Thanks everyone, maybe I shouldn't stress too much about my art because at this rate I will never finish my Visual Novel. Yeah the legs are way too chubby, I was experimenting new ways of drawing bodies at the time.

Loose sketches, don't worry, I will post some drawings painted on the next post!
Concept Sketches for Henry Simmons and Milagrosa:

I shouldn't change styles ... I was trying to draw an old woman.
Since I wasn't satisfied with Milagrosa design I changed her into this:

(She's the woman on the right). Anne Simmons is the young girl on the left.

Henry's sister, Anne, has been taken away by fairies (changeling) . They basically replaced her with a fairy disguised as her. Henry notices the swap and panics. He asks the Holy Order (it's a religious order against witchcraft, they also keep monsters away from the population) for help. To his dismay, they tell him to burn and torture fake Anne to persuade her to go back to the forest and give his real sister back home.
Henry dislikes violence and can't stand the sight of blood. Since he has bullied as a child he know how much painful is to be a victim of abuse. Even wanting his dear sister back with all his heart he is incapable of raising a finger against one of her kidnappers. Caroline seeing his fiancé despair reminds him that not all his lost. If they manage to find someone who can easily communicate with fairies or control them like a high skilled wizard or a fairy hunter they might have his sister back home for sure! She puts an ad on the most famous newspaper on the city and finally finds Zach, a fairy hunter.

That's the beginning of my Visual Novel . I hope it isn't confusing . Hun, also, if they torture fake Anne persuading her to return to the forest, there's just a 40% chance she will give the real one back. That's why it's a much better option to leave the case to someone skilled with dealing with fairies.

I need a big help here... The perspective is a big fat failure! The only thing that looks good are maybe the trees. I tried to finish this up but I just can't paint the houses properly! The fact that I have only a mouse doesn't help me either (no tablet). I think I will just go for traditional methods and just use water colors or acrylics to paint .

I have a random suggestion. Try checking out real life cities in Google Earth from that perspective and see if that helps any. Some of the bigger cities even have 3D buildings that might come in handy.

I really like your style. Caroline comes across very well, all your sketches do.