The "Serious Business" Critque Thread- Art

I'm not so good with anatomy myself, so I can't give advanced criticism there, but the pose looks a little stiff. Trying to start each piece with a really quick dynamic gestural drawing might help with this. The highlights look well-placed, giving the skin a realistic texture. :D

Just finished this, a critique can't hurt.

edited 3rd Apr '15 1:26:19 PM by d!zzzyzebra

I'm not too good at giving out critiques, but I'll give it my best shot.

The Good: The color palette is consistent and nice looking, the reflective textures look great, and the composition is nicely handled.

The Bad: Those little flakes above the girls hand look out of place. When doing particles, you have to make sure that they don't like you were just messing around with dots.

Art piece to critique: http://dokemon.deviantart.com/art/Want-to-play-with-knives-491994682 While I did do the drawing on paper. I traced the characters on Adobe Illustrator, because you can manipulate the lines. Then I enlarged the characters to 3000 px height, so they look cleaner and don't look disconnected. Then I colored in Photoshop, and then made a background and placed the characters there. I then shaded them, and done.

Overall a good piece, and I like your choices of colour. As Dokemon has already though, the effects need to be toned down a little. I especially question your addition of "light flashes" underneath the left arm, and the random letter-like particles above the person's head, as it distracts from the focus of the image. Additionally, the person's facial proportion looks rather squashed. As usual, the eyes are set too close to each other, and the nose and mouth looks too centered for that head angle.

First off, the person's limbs are too short. Proportionally, the arms should reach the crotch, while the legs should be about the same length as the head + torso. The shadowing of the characters are too simplistic, and it makes them look flat.

edited 11th May '15 1:55:14 AM by eScore

Arms + hands go a little bit past the crotch like 1/3 of the way down the thigh, and legs are a bit longer than head + torso esp if counting the foot, but yeah.

The perspective is way like...your horizon line is way off screen above the characters, so it looks like it should be a bird's eye view but it's not and it's making things look extra flat. Also shade in a color other than pure black. Pure black just deadens things.

On the same vein, it can be very helpful to chose a colour which isn't black for all shading. In real life shadows are never pure black, or light pure white. If you're not sure which colours to pick, try complementary ones (opposite sides of the colour wheel). The most common shadow/light tints in real life are yellow and blue.

Might as well throw this in the thread, anything is helpful. c:

I don't have that great an eye for this, but my first impression is that her hips and thighs seem very wide compared to her shoulders. I'm not sure if that's a positioning thing, because one shoulder and upper arm seems to kind of disappear behind her body while the thighs are more straight-on, or if it's a proportion thing.

edited 13th May '15 4:44:36 AM by LoniJay

I did this painting of Pearl, My tablet is malfunctioning hence the crappy lineart

_______

Critique

Always hard to critique someone better than me and such great painting. But one fault I notice is that the skin is too bright compared to the other parts of the body as if it was a light source.

edited 14th May '15 7:31:54 PM by RPGLegend

I think the main part of anatomy that needs work there is the hips; they seem much too long? Her torso and thighs are there, but separated by this undefined long stretch. Maybe sketching the skeleton in roughly first would help that. Her neck is also a little long (Pearl does have a long thin neck but not quite that much) and angled slightly oddly (leaning forward instead up arcing up).

I'd check the anatomy of the shoulders and pelvis (looking at the skeleton for reference can be very helpful), and maybe begin to think about how to make the overall body more fluid and natural. The easiest way to do this is to try out poses yourself and to use a line of action. Don't be afraid to use lots of curved gestural marks when you first begin drawing a figure, then check the anatomy at a later stage. :D

Here's mine!

edited 23rd Aug '15 2:17:59 AM by d!zzzyzebra

Wow. I´m just an amature. The angle on the teeth of the wheels looks a bit off. The shading is lil weird but otherwise the colour scheme is awesome.

A3 that got torn in half and I didn´t bother to put back together.

http://kamilkovakaramelka.deviantart.com/art/015-558244382 http://kamilkovakaramelka.deviantart.com/art/016-558244586 I know that the papers kinda shitty and coloring got messed big time due to this (plus weird longcoat.)

I like the designs, but I'd say you could probably improve in terms of anatomy (which is super annoying I know, but it really pays off to just practice it and get it down). I really do recommend doing all that annoying crap with the line halfway across the face for the eyes and stuff. Again, not fun, but worthwhile. Basically you want to lay out the piece before you start the heavy work. Based on those too pieces, I'd focus on facial proportions. Your body proportions are decent, but the posing is quite stiff, which you can only really fix by getting lots of practice in. Loosen up a little, and do that thing with the line of action? Honestly I'm terrible at posing so I can't give great advice but I'd say you'll find tutorials somewhere.

Okay this isn't finished but I won't be able to work on it for a while, but I'd love some feedback so I know what to fix before I get to polishing it off. Especially with regards to colour palette and composition and stuff.

His head seems a bit disproportionate, especially compared to the right arm. Colour wise, I don't know about the green of the bushes; it doesn't quite seem to blend in? T Hen again I am not very good at colour composition myself.

Thanks! Yeah I think I'll have to tweak the head size and then find a better shade of green.

I'd recommend adding a few more colours to the face to give the skin more life, and maybe try experimenting with focus/blur in the background to add depth. :D

I just finished this, so I'll throw it out there.

Ooh those are very good calls actually, especially on the blurring thing. Thanks!

And wow I really like that pic, and honestly have no idea how you do it. I especially like the multicoloured reflections coming off the crystal dress onto her face and arms. In terms of criticism, I'd say the only thing it's really lacking is texture (notably in the hair and the cloth part of her dress), and would suggest trying out different brushes etc. It really is the only thing holding it back.

@Vincent Quill: I'm not really all that much of an artist, as I don't really have all that much experience with this kind of stuff, so take my opinions with a grain of salt.

The way you have your guy with his fists (I'm assume his hands are curled up into fists) halfway into his jacket/sweatshirt pockets looks kinda weird. Assuming that type of thing isn't specific to the brand of jacket/sweatshirt he's wearing, those pockets should hold at least a full fist, if not a little more. It also seems a bit unnatural that your guy would be holding up the jacket as he is right at the halfway point of his fist when it would be much more instinctive to hold that part up when your fist is as far in as it can be. Assuming that the jacket isn't too small on him or anything, I think you could make it wrap around in a little more. On another note, the fists do seem a bit big compared to the arms.

The pockets should be cupping the fists in the pose you've got the guy in, but the guy's right pocket looks like it's cupping downward whereas the right arm looks like it should be aimed forward. The slight angle you've got there should be positioned over the point where his fist should be.

Most of the drawing/painting thing makes it look like the jacket/sweatshirt would just about fit the guy in the picture, but at the neck area where the hood meets the guy's shoulders, it seems a bit broad. I think if the jacket/sweatshirt was big enough where it would go a few inches past his neck, the jacket would look big and baggy everywhere else, whereas this does not seem to be the case. The hood line should fit a bit more snugly up to the guy's neck, and you probably could afford to add some more bulk to it.

I'm also assuming that the way you have this guy drawn is such that those lower portions of the sleeves are supposed to be sleeve cuffs, as opposed to rolled up sleeves. These sleeve cuffs look way too high up, and they should end closer to the guy's wrists. Furthermore, the sleeve cuffs should be a bit shorter, I'd say about a quarter or so of the forearm's length. If these are supposed to represent rolled up sleeves instead, it should be clearer by adding cuff features to this. Also if this is the case, the rolled up sleeves should be much shorter, because I'm not sure if jackets/sweatshirts are made that tightly while having sleeves of that length. I could be wrong on this though.

Assuming that the right arm is angling forward instead of going straight down, the edge of the cuff on that sleeve should be arcing the other way, so as to show that the arm is going forward into the jacket pocket. Either way, that arm seems too short for the pose you've got him in, and showing a bit more of the arm's angling will clarify which direction the forearm is supposed to be going.

I don't know why, but for some reason, I get the feeling the guy's pants should be rotated a bit to the right from the guy's reference. While the guy seems to be facing straight, the general orientation of the shirt kinda suggests a slight rightward angle.

I couldn't really tell that big green blob thing in the mid-ground area was supposed to be bushes until other people said so. They also seem a bit big compared to the cityscape around it, but then again this might be a peculiarity of the position the guy's standing at. It might help to sort of clarify these features.

Also, what is that white thing in the water supposed to represent? It looks kinda like a boat, but based on where I think the guy is standing, that looks like it would be a toy boat or something like it. I kinda want some clarification on what this is supposed to represent.

While it might be a stylistic choice, I don't think the skyscrapers would stretch out that much in the water's reflection, and I think we'd see some of the bush and the setting sun here as well.

On a further reflection, I'm starting to get the feeling the guy's standing in a skybox or something, though that wouldn't quite explain why there are bushes or whatnot. Is the guy standing in a skybox or is he standing in front of a lake/pool of water or something? This might clarify things a bit.

You might've based this off a photo or something, so I don't know how these criticisms would hold up if that is the case. I'm kind of a noob when it comes to drawing/painting things and haven't really grasped the finer mechanics of drawing and stuff, but these are just some things I noticed that I didn't see touched upon in the other critiques.

@d!zzzyzebra: I'm not 100% sure on this, but the angling on the ear looks a teensy bit off. The ear looks like it's angled slightly backwards in comparison to the rest of the head, so you could probably rotate it clockwise a bit. The muscle/fat on the underside of the left arm (the triceps area) looks like its drooping down a little bit in comparison to the right arm. I don't think I've got anything else to add.

@Cathari and Vincent: Thanks a ton! Very useful info.

edited 6th Nov '15 2:42:23 AM by d!zzzyzebra

I just finished this,◊ a fairly straightforward piece of Knights of the Old Republic fanart depicting prewar versions of Revan and the Exile. My inability to properly texture hair is still not doing me any favors, and Revan's right wrist seems to me to be a bit on the skinny side, but other than that I'm fairly content with the final result. Criticism would be much appreciated.

Their hands are tiny, and the shadow on the left-hand-one's face seems too straight.

That's all I've got. :P

Looking for critique on this.◊

Good stuff: I think the mixture of subtle colour washes and strong shadows looks great. The texture you achieved with the pen work really complements the piece. Overall it's a very strong drawing. Possible improvements: The nasal cavity is off-centre, which is slightly distracting. (The symmetry of the eye sockets and antlers works well) The hatching doesn't cause any problems, however it might be interesting to experiment with different types of borders. They may be something that works even better. Only minor niggles though, good job!

Here's my most recent illustration, any tips welcome: http://dizzyzebra.deviantart.com/art/Deja-Vu-621854571

Wow just wow that's gorgeous. I can't see anything that is a flaw. But if I had to force myself and think of a flaw to improve i would like to get your attention on her leg. It does look a bit metallic instead of smoth like the rest of the clothing. You might want to smith it out with an airbrush. But that's an extreme nitpick.

This is mine: I know it sucks.... But I'm wondering what I should be working on next.