Journey from newbie to pro? Advice and serious critique

[Akai85]

I always used to think my anatomy was pretty good but after a year of barely drawing I find that I have no idea what I'm doing wrong... But I know I'm doing something wrong. Add to that the fact that I have realised my art needs to be improved but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

It's confusing because I'm not starting from a newbies position, I know the basics but don't know what to do "next".

Anyway here are some drafty concepts I'd like feedback on so I can get an idea of why what I'm doing isn't working. (Sorry I don't know how to post them not in the stupid box - Please just open these in another tab so you can see them properly. )

Random sketches:

Dan kinda reminds me of an anime character but I'm not sure which one. He also doesn't look plain enough for his character


This small project I have:

Don't talk to me about sameface, they are literally the same person.


THE BIG PROJECT:

- Initial Art (In anime style, don't know why cause I suck at it):

- Next batch of art, when I realised the above sucked and was beyond salvation:

Mostly happy with these two but think Sarah's arm needs to be brought in more. Also wondering about making her face less wide but I kind of like it. Took a picture of some of her expressions which I thought were pretty good but can't find it...

I quite like this one.

I'm proud of this one because I have trouble drawing people from the right. And I like her hair.

I don't know what's wrong with his face but it freaking bothers me.

Mostly have to fix his hair - which I've done but didn't take a picture of! So dumb...

I can't work out where the fat should be deposited so we get chunky rectangle man

Shorten torso?

Side character concepts - I know they look shit, they're meant to. I didn't spend much time on them just wanted to nail down some visuals.

And that's all of them!

Remember they're my starting off point so I haven't integrated the racial features as well as I could have because I haven't done the research. My sister thought this guy who is meant to be the equivalent of South Asian in this world was white and I honestly didn't think he did look white! I guess even as a poc it's hard to break away from standard white people features because they're so culturally pervasive in mass media.

So yeah... I gotta work on that. Make the African look African, the Indonesian Indonesian, the Hispanic Hispanic etc etc. At least Sarah looks Anglo Saxon like she's meant to. Really it's the guys who need the most attention.

Also think the difference in body types isn't evident enough. There's a clear difference between Sarah and the other girl but the guys all kinda have the same figure and it's because I've forgotten how to draw guys anatomy! I used to be pretty good at it too (Also worried I made their torsos too long, which when I'm going for sort of realism isn't what I want.)

And the poses. On my next go I think I'll use photo references because I obviously can't think of or draw realistic poses. (I blame fashion school.)

But apart from all that I think I did a pretty alright job in general of hammering down the aesthetic (though it needs to be further refined) and designs of the characters. Hoping I can get some advice to take it to the next level. My preferred art style is cartoony-realistic but mines a little less cartoony if that helps. I'm sorry I'm bad at describing what I mean but I think you can kind of tell from the pictures.


Bonus redraw of a cat girl from an old concept:

Just wanted to make a less - I'm a generically cute girl with ears, whiskers and a tail! - and more I am part cat. Also gave her a pear body type instead of generic slim whatever. I was thinking it'd be nice to get back to this someday and I guess it would be popular considering everyone is half-animal. The funny thing is though the concept was groundhog-day-ish lol.

Well, that's it! I'd love any help, advice, redlines, links to tutorials, whatever.

[MaiMai]

Well, first thing's first. Are you drawing for fun/as a hobby or planning to use your own art in a VN? On the VN side of things, you don't have to draw anime/manga style and your non-anime drawings are more or less fairly decent (for your anime style one, it seems weak, so I think in order to improve you shouldn't focus on trying to draw in that style since there are other aspects that are worth more time spending on)

I was gonna write up a huge block of text of what you could do next, but I'm going to keep this simple instead and say you should work on proportions by drawing gestures. All your characters are just standing and there's a stiffness to them and quite frankly, they're lifeless. They're not doing anything interesting that suggests any personality.

For gestures and overall anatomical art, I suggest looking at this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClM2Lu ... 23462tQzBg

A website I go to when I want to do quick gestures is this one (there's a built in timer and you can choose clothed or nude models) : http://artists.pixelovely.com/

Another thing you can do to further your art journey is to explore other artists work! For myself, I created a folder where I collect images that displays a quality or style I love (like anime screenshots, VN CGs, another artist's OCs, backgrounds, etc) and I study what I like about the images and try to emulate it to an extent so I can improve. For instance, I'm used to drawing character portraits and for the longest time, I drew it "my" way. But then I started to really, REALLY look at screenshots of a recent anime and I started noticing my own flaws in my drawing and fixed according to what I saw.

Basically to get better, you have to study and research; get out there and inspire yourself! Here's a Tumblr that is a huge compendium of resources of all kinds that may serve as inspiration.

http://art-and-sterf.tumblr.com/navigation

[Akai85]

Well, first thing's first. Are you drawing for fun/as a hobby or planning to use your own art in a VN? On the VN side of things, you don't have to draw anime/manga style and your non-anime drawings are more or less fairly decent (for your anime style one, it seems weak, so I think in order to improve you shouldn't focus on trying to draw in that style since there are other aspects that are worth more time spending on)

I was gonna write up a huge block of text of what you could do next, but I'm going to keep this simple instead and say you should work on proportions by drawing gestures. All your characters are just standing and there's a stiffness to them and quite frankly, they're lifeless. They're not doing anything interesting that suggests any personality.

For gestures and overall anatomical art, I suggest looking at this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClM2Lu ... 23462tQzBg

A website I go to when I want to do quick gestures is this one (there's a built in timer and you can choose clothed or nude models) : http://artists.pixelovely.com/

Another thing you can do to further your art journey is to explore other artists work! For myself, I created a folder where I collect images that displays a quality or style I love (like anime screenshots, VN CGs, another artist's OCs, backgrounds, etc) and I study what I like about the images and try to emulate it to an extent so I can improve. For instance, I'm used to drawing character portraits and for the longest time, I drew it "my" way. But then I started to really, REALLY look at screenshots of a recent anime and I started noticing my own flaws in my drawing and fixed according to what I saw.

Basically to get better, you have to study and research; get out there and inspire yourself! Here's a Tumblr that is a huge compendium of resources of all kinds that may serve as inspiration.

http://art-and-sterf.tumblr.com/navigation

Drawing to use my stuff in visual novels - thus that bit in the title about becoming pro. And it's also be nice to improve my art skills for my career as well I am really serious about improving my drawing and my writing skill because I've never sucked at either, have always been passionate about both and I think I've got potential. (Modesty check?)

I love huge blocks of text. Anyway thanks for the references, I've never seen that tumblr before and the youtube video series looks good. For some reason I hardly ever use videos for reference? I've seen that second one before but it is useful and guess what? I had a huuuuge nested folder collection of art references, tutorials, photographs and art I liked! I accidentally deleted it and then recovered it but now it's all in one folder and I have to sort through the mess of my thousands and thousands of pictures.

I cannot articulate how frustrating and painful this was for me. I went through "entire" tumblrs to get some of those!

Anyway, I'll look at the references you mentioned and try drawing some more using gesture and whatever else I can glean. I just have one question - I think 2 or 3 of the poses I did were pretty alright (the two girls aren't that bad I think.) so could you be a little more specific about what's wrong with them (just those ones) if possible? Just because if I don't know the problem as well, I can't fix it! Also wondering since you said my non-anime drawings are more or less fairly decent how exactly I could make them better beyond gesture? I know I feel something's not quite there when I look at them myself but I can't tell what exactly it is. (I think it may be the noses or maybe all their faces look the same?) I really want to know what it is! *siggh*

I'll go practise some more now and hopefully come back with something better later.

[MaiMai]

Anyway, I'll look at the references you mentioned and try drawing some more using gesture and whatever else I can glean. I just have one question - I think 2 or 3 of the poses I did were pretty alright (the two girls aren't that bad I think.) so could you be a little more specific about what's wrong with them (just those ones) if possible? Just because if I don't know the problem as well, I can't fix it! Also wondering since you said my non-anime drawings are more or less fairly decent how exactly I could make them better beyond gesture? I know I feel something's not quite there when I look at them myself but I can't tell what exactly it is. (I think it may be the noses or maybe all their faces look the same?) I really want to know what it is! *siggh*

You said it yourself. There's technically nothing wrong with the poses, but as I said there's nothing that sticks out. Trying focusing on making newer work.

As for your non-anime drawings, think about things that would make it stylistic like line variation, coloring style, and what not. I said I don't like writing huge blocks of texts because text is nothing without application. So practice.

EDIT: I guess I have trouble helping people if they aren't set in a particular style or don't have a clear idea aside from "get better" which in of itself is subjective.

Have you looked at the stickied topics in the main part of the art forum yet? Auro-Cyanide has a topic full of art learning resources and I compiled a list of digital art tutorials...

[Akai85]

Alright, here's an update of sorts. See I did this without using any tutorials or photo-references because the one laptop fan was occupied so I couldn't use mine.

Here's the old version:

Here's these small gesture figures I did for practice working out the mechanics of posing and character and stuff:

Did I mention that I'm better at doing this small? For some reason I kinda suck doing the exact same thing large and clearly I have to work on that. I must've done like 7 large attempts that just were not working. It was a slow day.

Here's the result of my efforts - the updated version:

I'm actually really happy with this. It's on tracing paper and it looks good from both sides! I started off in my art book and of course there were problems because I suck drawing people facing the right but then I used the racing paper to flip between left and right, figure out what wasn't working and fix it. I think the arms do need a bit of tweaking but at this point I think it's safe to say I can use the computer for the rest and the quality should be good enough for an actual game. So now it's all line thickness and brushes and rendering! (Which I also need practice with )

So, thoughts? Any glaring flaws I'm not picking up? Anything that could be improved?

Whew, that was tiring. There's heaps you're not seeing here, pages and pages of agonising practice and attempts lol. Next time will hopefully be much easier since I'll be able to use a photo reference and stuff.

[Ren4]

I think you're on the right track. One thing I noticed is the shoulder. Try to make it less square unless they are wearing shoulder pad or some suit. Let me show you:

Another thing I would suggest is to give more distance between those legs. I think guys usually tend to open more to give them more balance. Don't take my word for it.

All you need is to keep practicing with movement, different poses/angle and expressions. Observe how people stand, walk, behave, etc. . . or you can find online/take pictures and use it for reference. Also, have you tried gesture drawing? It's a great way to practice movement. That way your figures won't be so stiff.
Here is a very simple version of gesture drawing of mine. I did it fast and hope it gives you an idea.


I hope it helped you.