Harick's Art

[Harick]

Said I should do this then I did, aren't I productive. I've been posting a fair bit in the art dump, so I figured I might as well post my art here instead from now on.


A background I made as a test before NaNo, I don't know how to make the transition from land to water look any better (it's meant to be a cliff so I couldn't draw a beach, I think,) and the shadow and detail in general on the mountains look horrible.


A sprite of the VN I'm working on. The colors look boring so I need to redraw it.


A guy with a bronze spear. I think it looks decent (though I probably won't after a week) except the hands and proportions, especially the feet. I tried to fix it and it looks better than it was at least.


A vampire dude, looks okay but I had problems drawing it cause the pose is so awkward. And how the legs are connected to the torso looks weird.

Anyway, those were the only drawings that I'm done with that show my skill as an artist (though I have one portraying a fight scene, but it's quite roughly done.) Any critique or advice is very welcome.

[Reikun]

Hi Harick! You have a good start on that background test. You have a solid horizon and seem to be following a consistent light source for your mountains. For transitioning from land to water, you might want to make the edge of the cliff less like a horizontal line. I googled for 'cliff over sea' and looked at a few images.

You can see that cliffs don't need to be perfectly horizontal (though certainly some will be more or less that way in real life). Things like rocks and bushes that crop up will add more interest to your backgrounds as well. If you are not already using photo references, you may find it beneficial to work that into your bg process. This should help you with things like detailing/shaping the mountains too.

Good luck with your art!

[Harick]

Oh thanks! I draw with references but I usually under utilize them. I actually looked up cliffs when I drew that but I didn't think to make it less horizontal for some reason, I must be an idiot >_< Again, thanks!

[Reikun]

You're not an idiot, Harick, you just need some more practice ^__^; If you want more in-depth critique for backgrounds feel free to notify me if you post anything new here~

[Harick]

Two weeks without posting anything, geez. BUT, in my defense I've been trying a new art style, but I'm not so sure about it.



Okay, so I decided to change to this due to the nose looking better and with lips there is more differentiating than just a line for the mouth. But I feel it looks somewhat generic? I don't know, it feels like I'm copying someone else's art style but I can't figure out who. Maybe what I drew before might be more generic, but it feels like that since it was a much clearer anime art style any deviation from the norm made it more unique, but I'm probably wrong.
Another thing is that the lips looks a bit weird sometimes, mostly on male characters. I don't currently have an example of one I think look weird. Still, here's the same picture without the lips:

So they look quite different. The one with lips is more feminine than the one without, but I could probably achieve the same effect with smaller lips. I like how both look, but when I draw men with lips I think they draw too much attention or something? Like, without lips they look "normal" while with lips they look like they are pursing their lips or something? It's hard to explain without an example, so I'll probably post a quick example tomorrow.

Anyway, if you have any idea on what I'm ripping off with this art style please tell me, and any critique would be very appreciated.

Also, was gonna practice landscapes again but I instead spent weeks experimenting with the lips and stuff, so I'll start with that tomorrow! Unless there's something else I feel like doing with the rest of the face. Or body. ANYWAY, I'm rambling, I'm doing this when tired, which has led to trouble before but I'll probably survive.

[Harick]

Okay, maybe I should stop posting when tired, but I doubt tired me will agree. Anyway here's a very rough drawn guy.


I drew one with and one without a smile to show... something. I don't know, when I drew it the smile made it look better, but now that I'm done I'm not so sure. Well whatever, any critique would be appreciated, though I guess the roughness makes it a bit difficult to give a fair critique, but you're welcome to try.

Also, why are the images so big? I'm pretty sure the other ones I've uploaded have the same amount of pixels.

[Harick]

Woo another one.

I'm horrible at updating this, but whatever. I don't know how to draw grass or sand or dirt but hopefully he looks wet! That sounded wrong

[Harick]

Haven't posted here in a while, but who cares.


I think it looks decent, but any pointers would be nice.

[Harick]

Meant to post this a while ago but I forgot. This was mainly for color practicing.

[Harick]

Oh, no, I forgot I had this thread. Well I feel I've improved since last time I posted here, though I'm not sure by how much. Any tips on what I should practice more would be nice.

[Drew]

Evening Harick,
I think the best critique I could give would be to work on your basic anatomy and proportions. Don't worry about drawing scenes or dynamic perspective until you've gotten the bases covered. Sure draw for fun still, but hit the fundamentals a lot and get experience with them - quick iterative sketches, no colour etc, are a great way of building up a body of experience. Once you've got that down, then work on how perspective effects the body.

Look up for the books by Andrew Loomis or tutorials based on his work, they're a good place to start with a lot of useful information all together.

As a general tip, look at your observation and self critique, reviewing your own work can spot logical in consistencies. Like with guyy1.png - it unlikely that your fringe would ever sit behind your glasses, particularly where they sit against the bridge of your nose. Easy spots like this can help improve the effectiveness of each piece and the more you can critique yourself the better you know what to watch out for in future.

Hope that helps and keep it up.

[Harick]

Thanks for the advice Drew! I do spend most of my time practicing the bases as you say, it's just that I have a bad habit of drawing something that I think looks good and then spending time on line-art, coloring, etc. but after a while noticing that it looks wrong, and then deciding to finish it anyway. Well, I hadn't really noticed that I do that until you mentioned it so I'll have to keep that in mind and just focus on the basics as you said. I also just recently started using references more so I'll hopefully get better at noticing things that are wrong. (and oh god that fringe is so embarrassing how did I not notice it oh god)
Thanks again, this was really helpful!

[Drew]

No worries.
I find it good to remember everything is a learning experience, practice is great for the experience - maximising the effectiveness of practice comes from critique, personal or otherwise.

[Harick]

I'm terrible at updating this, good god. Anyway here's something. I wanted to use this character in a Visual Novel but I feel like the story would be best used in a webcomic, but I'm not at a high enough level to make a comic that isn't terrible, and it seems like way to much work at the moment.

[Harick]

Well I just noticed I forgot to shade the fricking shirt. I should really have looked this over before uploading but I've come too far!
Anyway, messed up the layers so it should be fun to spend all day tomorrow fixing it. And he has really tiny feet. Wew.

ANYWAY, since I'm terrible at doing stuff I've started planning out a webcomic with this guy as the lead. Hopefully I'll learn a thing or two-hundred while doing so. The plan is to work on a VN and the comic at the same time, so hopefully I'll get something done by the end of the year.

Anywei, I think that's all I had to say? I'll probably notice something I should have mentioned tomorrow.

Oh yeh, I remember now, the scene is supposed to be in a forest fire but I forgot the actual fire, so that's pretty dumb.

Edit: Redid it, looks better now I think? I'm gonna say yes.
I didn't feel the filter I had over the old one fit as well on the new, but idk.