Advice for Art?

[Jake]

1) messed up ratios. Hands too big, arms too long or short, neck too long, etc etc.

Particularly with the head and the hands, in fact. I can't find the picture right now, but there's one that shows the relative perceptive size of the human body - that is, how much we think about using particular parts of our body and how much feedback we get from them, and stuff like that - which basically has giant head, hands and larger-than-normal feet, with stumpy little legs, barely any trunk at all and short arms. So that's one barrier in the way of drawing realistic proportions.

Another is that the head, hands and feet in particular are 'difficult' to draw, while people often abstract the arms and legs and trunk down to mere straight-sided cylinders and don't think about them too much... and the fact that the head and hands in particular are being thought about more because they're difficult often means they also end up being too big because they're 'more important'.

[Dark]

References are always your friend, same with critics.

You have the same problem that I have, along with relatively similar style... What I tend to do is always be wary of the skeleton and muscle movement and it tends to help. Circles and other shapes also tend to help me out a lot.

You sure do hair a lot better than I do though!

[xylia]

I think your art is cute and has a nice style to it, but here are some issues:

1. Realistically, hands should cover the face. Put your hand up to your face; it should almost go from your chin to your forehead. If this is a style choice (since girl hands tend to be smaller and anime heads tend to be rather large) run with it.
2. For the bent arm, the upper arm is too long in comparison to the forearm. If you need a rule; the elbow should be at the waist and the fingertips should fall to mid-thigh. If you're going for smaller hands as mentioned in pt 1, then please adjust accordingly (IE don't make the forearm too long just 'cause I said your fingertips should fall mid-thigh)
3. There's too much space between her waist and her crotch. AKA her hips are too long. I don't actually have a good rule of thumb for this one, sorry!
4. Your legs (I forget if it's legs or if it's hip-down) should be half the length of your body. Of course, this is not really necessary as in anime style leg-length is often exaggerated (see especially: Clamp)
5. The curve of her left breast is too far to her left and also a strange curve that makes her breast seem smaller than the right one, as well as oddly pointy in the center.
6. Additionally, the X on her shirt doesn't really follow her breasts and adds to the fact that the left boob is smaller than the right boob.
7. Her left shoulder is too far in-- It illusions a nonexistent angle in her upper arm. If you extend the line from her back-line/armpit point, it should curve comfortably with her back and the top of her shoulder. Also, this shoulder should be wider than the right one anyway, since we're viewing her at a 3/4 angle.
8. Her feet are too small and I can tell from the shots you drew them that you're used to drawing them from the front or from the side! Try drawing them from different angles... naked feet, socked feet, shoe....d feet! It really helps. If you can't have a friend pose for you and you're not flexible enough to pose for yourself (let's face it, if you were you might be a contortionist instead) then try http://posemaniacs.com; they have a foot in their flash... thingy.
9. Her left calf is concave on her left side. It should be convex. Actually, I find the shape of legs to be beautiful so I recommend looking at them~ Even your own, in the mirror. Legs are so nice.
10. In the big pic, her jaw doesn't seem to match up very well with the back of her head.

Things that are not really issues but may become so in the future, or generally just things that could be improved but are not really necessary:
1. Her right arm has no elbow. If this is a stylistic thing, go for it.
2. Her pinky and ring finger are kind of stiff.
3. There are too many clothing folds on her shirt, which makes it look too small.

Things you did nicely, so please don't change:
1. The overall thin/thick ratio. Her body works well with your style of art and the choice of clothing. Her arms are good thickness in relation to her waist; she has a good amount of curve for a teenager, etc.
2. Boobs! Though they could stand to maybe be a bit perkier, they are a good size for her general appearance.
3. Eyes. They're just well-drawn. Good size, good proportion, good foreshortening, and I love your style of eyeshine.
4. Her expressions. They're just adorable.

Anyway, I hope you found some of that helpful! Good luck and keep drawing ♥

[Auro-Cyanide]

1. Realistically, hands should cover the face. Put your hand up to your face; it should almost go from your chin to your forehead. If this is a style choice (since girl hands tend to be smaller and anime heads tend to be rather large) run with it.

Aww mine doesn't T^T My middle finger just passes my eyebrows. I have tiny hands!

[Ren]

Aww mine doesn't T^T My middle finger just passes my eyebrows. I have tiny hands!

That's actually alright, you know? What I've been taught (and verified with myself) is that keeping the hand in front of your face it should reach more or less the middle of your forehead (without bending your fingers on the nose, that is).

[pkt]

My hands go from the bottom of my chin to my hairline. I guess I have huge hands. It figures that my characters come out with proportions that come out large because of self referencing.

But enough about me. I like the hair a lot. It has a Hatsune Miku type thing going on . The other major thing is you have decent posing skills too. Now what I think could use improving is the chin area. I comes one as too sharp and rigid for my tastes. It's almost sharp in a way. Also her pants seem to go way low on her body. Her pelvis in general is a bit lower than her hips and it should be about 3 or 4 inches higher to look more comfortable. This next thing is not necessarily bad but it looks uncomfortable the way her knees aren't bent at all. A slight bend would have been more believable. I liked the shoes the hands and the face. They look really good. As some people have said though, he chest looks kind of off due to where you added the lines to give her shaping but the size does seem to add up abouts. Maybe if the right line was closer to a 45 degree angle it would look more natural.

[Honey.Yellow]

I think your art is cute and has a nice style to it, but here are some issues:

1. Realistically, hands should cover the face. Put your hand up to your face; it should almost go from your chin to your forehead. If this is a style choice (since girl hands tend to be smaller and anime heads tend to be rather large) run with it.
2. For the bent arm, the upper arm is too long in comparison to the forearm. If you need a rule; the elbow should be at the waist and the fingertips should fall to mid-thigh. If you're going for smaller hands as mentioned in pt 1, then please adjust accordingly (IE don't make the forearm too long just 'cause I said your fingertips should fall mid-thigh)
3. There's too much space between her waist and her crotch. AKA her hips are too long. I don't actually have a good rule of thumb for this one, sorry!
4. Your legs (I forget if it's legs or if it's hip-down) should be half the length of your body. Of course, this is not really necessary as in anime style leg-length is often exaggerated (see especially: Clamp)
5. The curve of her left breast is too far to her left and also a strange curve that makes her breast seem smaller than the right one, as well as oddly pointy in the center.
6. Additionally, the X on her shirt doesn't really follow her breasts and adds to the fact that the left boob is smaller than the right boob.
7. Her left shoulder is too far in-- It illusions a nonexistent angle in her upper arm. If you extend the line from her back-line/armpit point, it should curve comfortably with her back and the top of her shoulder. Also, this shoulder should be wider than the right one anyway, since we're viewing her at a 3/4 angle.
8. Her feet are too small and I can tell from the shots you drew them that you're used to drawing them from the front or from the side! Try drawing them from different angles... naked feet, socked feet, shoe....d feet! It really helps. If you can't have a friend pose for you and you're not flexible enough to pose for yourself (let's face it, if you were you might be a contortionist instead) then try http://posemaniacs.com; they have a foot in their flash... thingy.
9. Her left calf is concave on her left side. It should be convex. Actually, I find the shape of legs to be beautiful so I recommend looking at them~ Even your own, in the mirror. Legs are so nice.
10. In the big pic, her jaw doesn't seem to match up very well with the back of her head.

Things that are not really issues but may become so in the future, or generally just things that could be improved but are not really necessary:
1. Her right arm has no elbow. If this is a stylistic thing, go for it.
2. Her pinky and ring finger are kind of stiff.
3. There are too many clothing folds on her shirt, which makes it look too small.

Things you did nicely, so please don't change:
1. The overall thin/thick ratio. Her body works well with your style of art and the choice of clothing. Her arms are good thickness in relation to her waist; she has a good amount of curve for a teenager, etc.
2. Boobs! Though they could stand to maybe be a bit perkier, they are a good size for her general appearance.
3. Eyes. They're just well-drawn. Good size, good proportion, good foreshortening, and I love your style of eyeshine.
4. Her expressions. They're just adorable.

Anyway, I hope you found some of that helpful! Good luck and keep drawing ♥

Ohh. I see. (: Thanks for all the detailed advice! I'll look out for these things in the future.

[Honey.Yellow]

My hands go from the bottom of my chin to my hairline. I guess I have huge hands. It figures that my characters come out with proportions that come out large because of self referencing.

But enough about me. I like the hair a lot. It has a Hatsune Miku type thing going on . The other major thing is you have decent posing skills too. Now what I think could use improving is the chin area. I comes one as too sharp and rigid for my tastes. It's almost sharp in a way. Also her pants seem to go way low on her body. Her pelvis in general is a bit lower than her hips and it should be about 3 or 4 inches higher to look more comfortable. This next thing is not necessarily bad but it looks uncomfortable the way her knees aren't bent at all. A slight bend would have been more believable. I liked the shoes the hands and the face. They look really good. As some people have said though, he chest looks kind of off due to where you added the lines to give her shaping but the size does seem to add up abouts. Maybe if the right line was closer to a 45 degree angle it would look more natural.

Ah okay. xD Is there is a general rule as to where to place the pelvis to make it look natural? I'm not too sure about the proportioning of the body.

[Ren]

The pelvis should be pretty much aligned with the wrist, but since you're talking about a bone which is covered by tissues and stuff, I'd say a bit lower than the lines of the wrists should be fine.

[Lady_Arthemis]

Hello Honey . Yellow! Hm, the advices that I can give seems to have been given already. But it won't hurt to reinforce it again huh?

1. You can improve on drawing the character from different angles/and perspectives. It will definitely prove to be useful since VN art requires artists to draw from different angles.

2. Practice on drawing males too : I believe that male and female characters are equally important, therefore, as artists, we should take great care on learning how to draw them

3. Learn expressions: I know you can draw expressions well , and I believe you can improve it. Again, as you can notice, one of the things that makes VNs interesting are the expressions of the characters You can try to search for Character expressions meme on the net or in deviantart fo guides.

Well, those are my advices. . . I do not consider myself as a true expert, but I'm willing to share what i know. Thanks for reading :d