The "Serious Business" Critque Thread- Art

So, since we have a critque thread for writers, I thought we might as well have one for artists.

The way it goes is that every piece of art has to have one critque before people can post new art. So, Troper A posts Picture A. Troper B critques Picture A, and then posts Picture B, Troper C critques that and so on.

And for sake of convience, warn if the picture you're linking to has NSFW content.

So! I'll start with a pictur from deviantART.  ^*

Critique: The concept is hilarious, and I also love the energy in this sketch—the pose has a sense of motion to it, despite the fact that she's sitting on the floor with fairly stable clothing. The background, while simple, adds a nice touch of contrast to the warm neutral colors as well, so they really pop. The only, incredibly tiny problem I can see is the wrinkles on the collar and the ends of the sleeves—they are just a touch too deep and sharp, as if they're cutting into the neck and arms.

My piece: A crossdressing woman. I am aware that I forgot suspender clips and the stripes on the vest's shoulders, and that the hands look stupid. This is more of a concept sketch—I wanted an outfit that would de-emphasize the character's Hartman Hips as much as possible.

edited 3rd Aug '10 10:10:45 PM by Leradny

Critique: The body and clothes are quite stiff and the character is holding an unnatural position. Work on creating fluidity and natural movement in your figures by studying and referencing pictures and real life. (Also, she's a woman— where are her boobs? Where are her curves? Even in disguise, there should be some hint of them.) On the plus side, there's a lot of detail in the vest and clothing.

(I don't have any art to critique, I just like talking. :D)

Critique: May I suggest looking through some of these tutorials? Especially the Flexibility and Human Anatomy ones, to make your characters look more natural.

Ronka: It is a disguise (which I should have said)—she is binding her not-particularly-ample chest and intentionally covering up her waist, but her hips are still about as wide as her shoulders.

Concerning the stiff pose, I am finishing a better character sketch, but I wasn't really working on poses or fluidity to begin with (which I also should have said)—it was the outfit. The question I really wanted answered was, "Upon first glance would you figure out that this person is not a man or does she pass?"

Concerning the stiff clothing, I was working off these◊ reference◊ images◊ and men's business attire really does seem quite stiff. But I'll be sure to add more flow once I have the character in a more dynamic position.

Leradny: Unfortunately, I can't think of a critique that hasn't already been said. Just keep working on fluidity and natural placing of anatomy.

Latia: The character seems a bit unbalanced, and I place blame for that on the fact that her head and torso act pretty much as a solid object. If you tilted her head up a bit, as if she were looking back behind her but still trying to keep balance, it would come off as a bit more natural.

Tear it apart.

edited 4th Aug '10 9:48:41 PM by Scrye

Scrye: Well, I love the fluidity of the lineweight variation and the anatomy but I can't get over the unpronounced lips and the lack of whites in her eyes. It's alienating. That's the only real issue I have with it but if you want a more in-depth analysis and critique you're going to have to explain exactly how you want to improve.

Thanks for the critique. I actually played around with the eyes and the lips during the coloring stages, the problem with the lips was that any dark color I used made it appear as lipstick, rather than a natural color, so I kept it at it's lighter and less contrasted shade. It still bothers me, though. I didn't want to use lines to pronounce the lips because I didn't want the face to become too complicated, I might play around with it some more and see what works; lines are always easier to tweak than coloring/shading. The eyes, I'm afraid, are the result of my own preference for this character. Several other characters actually have the visible whites, but I found adding them to this particular character threw off the intended emotion a little bit.

I guess I was just looking for anything that could make me improve as an artist in general. How is the pose, how well do the colors work together, do the lines distract from the overall image, is the shading off, whatever.

However, I'm content with simply whether you like the way the picture looks as a whole or not, and in that case, what do you like/dislike? What can you tell about the character just through the visual cues alone? Do you think you'd like or dislike this character without having any additional information about them? That stuff is just as helpful because that'll help me improve on concept rather than technique.

edited 4th Aug '10 9:59:36 PM by Scrye

I can't tell anything about the character, but don't blame yourself for that. I'm not good with people.

Quickly summarized.◊ Beyond that looks good.

Here is my artwork, called "The Failbringer".

http://jacobmartin.photography.artlimited.net/image/en/198098

Ever since I took this image on my camera at that precise moment, I have been captivated by the abyss this image represents. My art teacher doesn't understand how its central figure stands for his personal anarchy via his V for Vendetta mask, nor does the boombox pictured successfully communicate to her, rather than the other students, that the Epic Fail Guy cosplayer is gatecrashing via Rickroll.

I'm not looking entirely for psychological validation here, but I'm puzzled at how I can get such a spontaneous image to convey anything, ANYTHING - to people older than 40 about what this guy is dressing up as and why. I seem to have trouble depicting concepts visually.

I associated the mask with Guy Fawkes, actually. That might be a better reference for an older audience.

Eh, wiped because this probably belongs in the Hello Artists thread instead.

edited 13th Aug '10 11:21:26 AM by Leradny

There's obviously something wrong with the way I drew this girl's head, but after spending some time trying to fix it I even don't know what's right and what's wrong anymore.◊ Help?

Fanty- from what I can see, the lack of ears, and the way the lower jaw turns into a lip is what is messing it up. Also, the hair is pretty solid, but that's a stylistic thing, it seems. The hair also appears to be rather assymetrical.

Criticize away◊

edited 27th Aug '10 8:04:53 AM by A_H_R

I'm not trying to be mean, but this is my honest opinion:

This picture shows most of the mistakes usually made by people new to drawing:

1. Notebook paper. It's only acceptable if you're doing rough concept sketches, or were drawing at work where you didn't have access to a proper sketchbook. Myself, I scribble on notebook paper all the time, but I would never draw something that expansive on it.
2. Draw from a photo reference, please. I can tell that you tried to figure out how these characters would look by guesswork, instead of finding pictures of people that kind of look like them and drawing from those, then applying stylization to the results.
   • Anime noses - it's best not to use them unless you REALLY like that style above all other types of nasal depiction. Look at how Satoshi Kon and Naoki Urasawa depict noses: Still in the anime/manga style, but with a wide variety of choice.
3. Don't just color hair like you would a t-shirt. Use small, directional streaks flowing in the hair's direction, with intermittent light spots left to show shine.

Also, this isn't a criticism, but it seems you, like me, have trouble drawing faces in 3/4, or that weird angle that's not quite front view, but not quite 3/4 either. God, I hate that angle.

I'll finish this later - there are good things about the drawing, but FUCK my left wrist is killing me right now.

—

So this is from that other art thread.

Warning: Tits, but strictly for the purposes of anatomical study:

This is pretty much everything worth keeping that I drew between August 19th and 26th.◊

There are two drawings of my hands, two 15-minute nude studies from my art class and one two-hour one of my former school bag, a sketch of a GQ model, and three rough protoypes of characters from that webcomic I keep talking about, including that girl from my last drawing as she'll look at age 12.

This is probably the last time I'll be posting one of these for a while.

I'm done drawing random stuff just to prove to myself I can draw, and most of my future efforts will be focused on my already too-long-delayed project.

edited 31st Aug '10 10:07:13 AM by Wheezy

O____O Holy Crap! Detailed Crit! My hero!

You are right about being new to drawing. I've only drawn for about 3 years, and only really got out of stick figure mode 2 years ago.

I usually draw this stuff when I am in school, so yeah, I do use linepaper when I really shouldn't. It's a bad habit of mine now, because I practically use it as a grid.

You are completely correct for numero dos. And embarrassingly so. I do not really know what the characters look like myself, to be honest. I know drawn traits they have, but I don't really know their real life equivalent. But yeah, I've been mostly influenced by animé, resulting in using animé body parts that I do not have a complete understanding of.

Coloring. My mortal enemy. I have no concept how to shade either. I'm not mad at you for pointing this out, just myself.

I have attempted to do 3/4s before, and I am...OK at it, but yeah, suck at it like the dickens when I want to draw something good. It's either 1/2 or full view.

Thanks again sir!

edited 30th Aug '10 11:23:02 AM by A_H_R

Wheezy: A good dump overall, so I'm just nitpicking here. The palm of the lower hand needs to curve down more towards the pinky—as it is, it's rather too rectangular. The nipple on the top-most nude figure is completely flat, which sends it right into the Uncanny Valley even accounting for the lack of face. If you're going to draw them, they need to stick out at least a little. For the one-eyed glasses-wearing figure and the nipple-less nude figure, I'll just assume you weren't finished.

I think my favorite are the two bottom portraits and the suited figure. You have a knack for expression and though your style is simple, I don't think I've ever seen you draw the same character twice unless it's to test out angles.

New Art: A character from before, but in a more dynamic pose now!

Anyone?

@Leradny: The anatomy is a mess, you obviously didn't use any reference pictures (I don't use them either but you shouldn't do it unless you are 100% confident that you can get the anatomy right). Also the figure has no "flow" to it, I don't really know how to explain it well, but it just seems to be all over the place. All that and the fact the design is just too full of detail makes the figure really hard to focus on, my eyes just jump around all over the place, because the drawing itself is all over the place and doesn't seem to have any focus point or flow. When you start doing a drawing, you need to know where the eyes of the viewer will start the journey and where they will end it, and which part of the picture is the focus point, and you need to then do the drawing accordingly. Though I'm sure someone out there could explain it much better than me.

edited 7th Sep '10 11:01:30 PM by fanty

Anything wrong with this Mecha?◊

Code Geass inspired, correct (I'm guessing from the pronounced back that I'm assuming is a cockpit)?

I like the overall design, but the shapes of the arms don't quite seem to fir together right. I'm also having trouble deciphering the right shoulder...is that a gattling gun?

It is Code Geass inspired, yes. Also, only one arm is actually visible.

And yes, it is a small gatling gun.

It feels a little out of place in the design, and I can't quite tell what it's attatched to.

It's probably a thing that would look better in front-view. I do think it looks rather sloppy in it's attachment, though...

It is supposed to be attached to the shoulder, yeah.

Fanty: I used several reference pictures, and I find I must keep repeating that most of the stiffness is due to the fact that men's clothing really is that stiff.

If you could point out exactly what is so wrong about my anatomy that would be great. If it's her arms, the sleeves are very wide and baggy which distorts the proportions somewhat. If it's her neck... well, that's my bad but I can't figure out what's wrong with it.

The focal point of this picture is the silhouette. The details are just there because I like them.

Anyway, I'm glad to know this drawing has absolutely no redeeming qualities at all.