Roz's Art Dump [accepting critiques]

[arachni42]

OTL Now accepting critiques! Be as honestly brutal as you can!

Haha, well, I can try.

The Halloween one seems the best so far. I think you're going in a good direction in many different ways, but to make your art professional-looking, all of those things need some improvement, too.

Proportions are definitely important. For faces, some of your eyes are too high on the head -- they should be halfway down, and that's not counting the volume of the hair. Some anime styles go even lower than halfway. Make sure those eyes are lined up properly. The Halloween one is pretty good on this front, but weak on the calves and feet. (Although, in VNs, you probably don't need to draw calves and feet so much.) His arms/body don't look bad, but you could work on the shape... on the left side I'm not quite getting the sense of volume that I should for his body, particularly in comparison to the right side. (Things like the Nightmare Before Christmas are highly stylized; the thing that's important is that all of the parts are consistent with each other.) Also, based on the position of his shoulders, the elbow on the left should be lower. Also note that the way you have him drawn, his body is twisted around. His upper body is at an angle, but his waist is facing us. It's okay if this is intentional, but I wanted to point it out in case it wasn't.

Line art -- well, I don't have a lot of comments because I'm not a good judge of it, but I will say... experiment with colors other than black. (And generally speaking make sure it's clean & neat, and remember that line thickness is an artistic choice you make.)

Coloring -- I like your palettes, and I like the like texture. The coloring itself could use improvement. Again, I think the child is the best, especially with regards to hair. Some of them have hair that look... for lack of a better term... Photoshoppy.
More generally, though, I think you're in a good position to take your coloring to the next level by really, really thinking about not just the direction of light, but the color and effects. Think about what color the ambient light is, what color the highlight is, and where reflected light might be. For example, look at how lighting is used in this random image I found on Google when I searched for The Nightmare Before Christmas:

Finally, pro art will often use poses to a great effect. So, practice those, and post them for feedback. ^_^

[Rozume]

@arachni42

Thank you for the detailed response. I'm make sure to keep those points in mind when I make another piece.

@Fungii

Hahaha, most of my stuff involve headshots/busts ;_______; I'll make more art soon.

[Rozume]

I was going to post this when it was done, but I figured I'd post the sketch up for critiques first before I move on. ^^

[Rozume]

Doing concept art instead of working on my game yay~ :'D

Dumping this here.

I've been playing around with Kyle T. Webster's brushes and I really like them! They're fun to use. c:

[Laniessa]

Er, I had written out this post and then I lost it, so the wording might be a bit off.

Honestly, to get a professional feel, you need to practice, get a firm grasp on shading, colour usage, anatomy and all that fun stuff.

There are, however, a couple of tricks:
Clean lines - make sure the variance in lineweight is intentional, or else it can look sloppy.
Contrast - not too much, but enough so there's depth.
Variance of soft / cel shading - in real life, we have both cast shadows (which makes it look 'cel shaded') and, er, the other kind (I forgot the name, but it's like something round being darker at the bottom, away from the light source, than the top).
This is all debatable, since you can have really rough lines / really dramatic or minimal contrast / only soft or only harsh shading, and still make it look professional, but you need a firm grasp on all factors before you can really pull it off, imo.

1 is messy lines, 2 is normal lines; both have similar shading.
3 has less contrast, 4 is the same as 2, has okay contrast.
5 is soft only, 6 is cel-shaded only.
7 is messy lines, less contrast, and soft only, 8 is the same as 2 and 4.
So all the factors can add up. I think.

To be specific with yours, you could try to tidy up your lines a tad, make certain areas of shading cast shadows, use gradients on places like hair so you have more roundness, and push the contrast. (Is it okay if I redline / paint over your stuff?)


(take everything with a pinch of salt, i'm self-taught.)

EDIT: Oh, right! For the Sanjita-image, the head is turned back a bit too much; if you have a mirror, try to do that pose and realize how painful it is. Either try to twist her body to the viewer more, or her head away. For the latest image, I like the purple shadows for the red, but you can definitely push it darker! Not more purpley, just darker.

[Rozume]

@Laniessa

Thanks for your input! I really appreciate it. c:
Feel free to redline/paint over my work.

I made another picture keeping some of people's suggestions in mind. But I think halfway through I kind of forgot what I was doing OTL;;

I made it darker than I intentionally wanted it to be, and I tried to fix that with curves and adjustments but that didn't work haha ^^;

Also another headshot cause I'm lazy and headshots are easy to make

[Laniessa]

Just a quick question, is the new character meant to be pale? Like, really, really pale? That's the impression I'm getting, but it might be because of curves/adjustments.

I reckon if you want to improve on anatomy, you should go to Proko's channel on YT for a good grasp on face proportions, and he's doing a figure drawing thing lately (which I haven't watched whoops) so that might help. Personally loved Sycra's gesture (?) tutorial. For making dynamic poses, but uh, helped me quite a bit on just anatomy and structure. My biggest suggestion to anyone watching these videos is to have a sheet of paper and a pen/pencil in front of you and draw along. Your mind just picks up on what they say better because you're putting it into practice right there and then. Your two main problems at the moment - well, the most eye-catching ones - are the way you draw your eyes and the overall structure of the face.

I forgot to mention, I really like your art style, haha. I wish you good luck in getting it to a professional grade!

So, well, onto the topic of your latest picture. (I was planning on cropping it down but damn, I write too much and too messily, lol.) Tell me if you can't read anything.

I love the colours on this pic! Haha my works always come out to be a slush of boring colours -

The redlines focus more on the drawing (and the light source), while the paintover is more on the shading. (Left is original, right is edited.)

[Rozume]

He's pale, but that's also the curves/adjustments. :'D

Thank you so much! Your notes and tips really helped a lot. :>
I'm a big fan of Proko and Sycra, but having a piece of paper around while watching the videos is a really good idea. (I should do that more often. xD;;)

Here's something else I've worked on.

[Rozume]

Whooo~ Another one~!

I figured I try getting my long overdue requests out of the way instead of doing homework. :'D

For Didules~

[chocojax]

hayley.png:
- In terms of gesture/flow, this one looks a little bit strange, especially since it looks like it should be something with a lot of movement. Pick up doing gestural drawings (if you haven't already) and just do whatever feels fun to you. I like to use a really thick brush and just draw movement lines. It's abstract, but it really helps out when you're in the planning stages of your drawing.
Randomly pulled out from google, but:
http://one1more2time3.files.wordpress.c ... st3233.jpg
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/ ... 5go5e0.jpg (pretty abstract)
http://richardclaravalcontemporaryfigur ... /2-Is1.jpg (Doesn't... seem like gestural drawing, but it's a nice example of having exaggerated movement.)
- To be a little bit more specific on above: the hair's limp, her feet could be exaggerated/pointed in the same way the legs are "going", and her arms look pretty straight/rigid. In something like this, just exaggerate a lot!

didules.png:
- Girl's collarbones are too low. Additionally, the guy's (?) collarbone+topmost chest looks strange.
- The dip in the lips should be more subtle (of course, ranges from person to person). Just google images of lips and observe how the line goes and could be drawn.
- I wouldn't define the hand a lot, since it's not really a focal point, but you could outline the small pieces of the fingertips, to make it look less like mittens.

[Rozume]

digital painting how do i do

[Laniessa]

You're alive!

I focused more on the face, but if you disagree with something, that's fine, since I work mainly in anime style and need more practice in realism/semi-realism, haha.

I think the thing that stands out the most is the eyes - one, how it seems to protrude out, and 2, the shape. The protruding thing is fine, but the eyelid tends to cast a shadow over the top half of the eyeball, so you should take note of that. The shape - the highest point on the eye is a bit too far in one direction, so keep a note of that too.

Next, is the light source. It's from the left - so the nose wouldn't really cast a shadow in the direction the light is coming from. If there was a shadow on that side, it would be more because of the, er, shape of the face, and in that case, the positioning needs to be changed. I admit, the getting rid of the line of highlight was half accidental and half just because of me, but uh, yeah. I made the other nostril visible, as it should in the angle.

For the mouth, it was mainly okay! Great usage of colour, there. Remember the lips would cast a shadow on the teeth below, and there's a bit more roundness in the lips you could show.

The rest were just slight things - adding roundness to the face on the left size ever so slightly, darkening the shadow below her face.

For the hair, I'm not sure how to explain it, but here - push the contrast, blond hair especially; don't go green for the shadows, turn the hue to red or purple; you have the nice bg - mix in the base yellow with the red and use that colour for some shadows; the way hair moves is a bit more natural, instead of having just one direction. Also, gravity.

Redlines mainly focus on showing you why I changed the nose, and how the eyes would be a bit more natural. Normally, top of ear meets the eyeline, bottom of ear is top of mouth, though I didn't show that too well.

I hope this helps!

[Rozume]

/late

Thanks Laniessa again for the redline and the tips! You're definitely helpful, as usual. ^^;

I know I haven't been updating this thread lately; I'm mainly doing art for others nowadays so I haven't had time to do art for myself. This reminds me, I need to get those requests done... >_>

Here's a sprite I did for someone's game that I asked to do over because I didn't like it. 8D;

[Rozume]

Something I did for someone, nothing special.

Dumping this here:

[Rozume]

Serene for TsukiShima.

Slowly, slowwly getting these requests done. @_@