Fedodika the Koala

[smrr]

Happy Birthday bby boy <333

Keep going and going and making the art you dig ;) ;)

[Fedodika]

Smrr: <3 u

Gonna be doing a cool new piece soon, with a dinosaur :)

[Fedodika]

Hey y'all... So recently i went with my relatives to Florida for a vaction and it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. Nothing tragic happened, it was just the fact that I'm 22 now and have no independence and have an extreme urge to move out.  I vowed to myself "Never again" am I going to be dragged along with anyone for any reason. 

That being said, i had a bit of time to reflect even more on my art, much more introspectively than i did on my internet break. My art is my ticket out of here. It is the ticket to my independence and my happiness essentially. 

http://fedodika.deviantart.com/


I just don't know what to do man, it's like; how do you get art jobs online? Like what do i need to do? I'll do anything, what am I missing? Fundamentals? Consistency? Style? Presentation? If you could look at my deviantart or artstation and say anything, "this guy isn't getting jobs because _____" What is it? Sure you could pick apart the fundamentals of my work, but is that the only thing holding me back? It'd be really cool if that was the only problem was fundamentals. 

I often feel my work has no consistency, but i try to just do character illustrations. Is it just not marketable? I have a lot of followers on DA but it doesn't really help, it just adds comments and faves, which unfortunately you can't trade in for money lol. By the odd chance i got a loyal follower whose payed me (not much) pennies for three commissions. That's it though.

I admit i've never applied anywhere (professional) for work, but maybe it is a fantasy that you don't have to apply for work. I've applied to dozens of jobs on DA that might suit my style but no one replies. Am i ready for even low tier work? Is my art worth anything? I don't really care for praise, i just want stability or some sort of return for the countless hours of practice.

"Getting through the middle" Is a great podcast on Dan Warren's Youtube channel, where they say over and over that the amount of work you have to put in just to get a job in this field is insane. And you could be totally successful with a security net in any other field. 

I've had several people who work in the industry say they never even applied for jobs and still got those emails. Is it just a skill thing I'm not at yet? Maybe it is... Maybe it isn't. I know there's this skill barrier that people need to "cross" before they "get those emails." But does it all rush in at once? I've heard of people making just one piece and getting lots of work from it, does that really happen?

Is this all a cruel joke? 10,000 hours later... 
http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-5415.html

I think of a one Simonarpalmer, a fellow old Crimson Dagger who got really great at the technical side of things, and then had to call it in and go move back home or something; He's back on the scene again and doing commercial work, so it seems to finally have worked out. When he wasn't getting work, i mean, his work was really good, nice colors, textures, and concepts. His proportions were off here and there and some of the faces could have been prettier, but does that really hold people back from work that much?

http://simonarpalmer.deviantart.com/

I guess so.

It's not hard, it's just perplexing, how i percieve things.

You see, i have this feeling that good things are right around the corner, but I've had this feeling for so long that I kinda don't trust it. I remember Sycra saying that if you have a problem in art, keep drawing. I look at work i recently did and i say, "this is bad" but i also hear professional artists say that about their work. 

This is all a real mindfuck tbh.

I love art, I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I want to do a lot with art, but i really want to get out of here lol. I'm better at music and acting than I'll ever be at art, but i don't want to do those things anymore. Maybe I should just keep drawing lol, Alabama sucks, never come here.

On a lighter note, here's a funny video:

[RickRichards]

Hey man, i´ll just drop my few cents and hope it helps.

I myself am struggling to enter into the side of art where you see your work paying back, a few years have passed, i look back and see the amount of work and that i´m advancing, yet it´s frustrating to see that breaking through is still complicated and i´m the worst critic of myself.

I´ve started a thread about start having work, and there a lot of useful answers from our fellow daggers; http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-7494.html

Theres a lot of juice in it.

There are out here guys much more qualified to answer to you, still i would like to provide some emphasis on a few points you brought;

1- Don´t feel guilty if you´re doing your best, it sucks but persistence can win. If you have a good family don´t regret the time you spend with them because time flies and sometimes we regret the time we wasted not being with our loved ones. ;)
Not trying to sound arrogant.

2- Hope you don´t mind but i´ll not say what is missing on your art, i see that you´re putting a lot into it, and that helps a lot, create a few markeable pieces about something you like and start with a small portfolio.
Just one thing i see, and i have the exact reverse problem; you use a lot of soft brushwork on your forms, i use a lot of sharp edges and i need to soften them up.

3- Yup, Sycra´s advice is very good, stick with art, don´t quit.

Hope it helps mate.

[smrr]

Hey you, <3

Just read all that ya wrote and I gotta say:

You've gotta be overly critical of your work.


I know how you are when it comes to other peoples work, so now it's time for you to give yourself that same c&c. Is your art marketable? Are there fundamental issues? You need to build your brand, but be realistic about it. You need to find ways to get ADs to need your art in their publication/whatever. Be legit, reap rewards <3

Pretty much every great artist is overly critical of their work, as you know - because their eyes see better than what they're able to produce, etc. But I think there's a difference between hating one's work and knowing they can improve. I used to hate the shit out of my work and it forced me into a downward spiral for some time. You need to ask yourself if you're truly happy with what you're making and if not you need ta figure out what you truly, truly enjoy doing. This is where experimenting and trying absolutely new things to what you're used to may open your mind to new possibilities. When you took that month off from the internet, did you study? Did you try new things? Tried to draw differently to how you usuallly go about things? Really ask yourself.

The audience needs to see that you're enjoying what you're doing. It's hard to explain but people can tell when theres no heart in it. 

Anyway Fedo, I know you'll figure it out. They're just my thoughts on the matter and what helped me <3 all the best, quit beating yourself up, it's all apart of the sick joke lmao

[John]

Oh man. First off, I hope you and your folks are safe. The news is painting Florida like it's crazy town.

We have the same sentiments with regards to what we're trying to achieve.. Like you, I can't see myself doing anything else besides drawing. Like you, I feel pressure from getting integrated with the family and really just want to break free from the system.

About getting discouraged by not getting jobs: you shouldn't be. Instead of getting discouraged by the lack of positive response (or any response at all), treat this as a impetus for doing better. Do it so much better that they could not ignore you. 

With regards to getting a response: if I let you peek through my mailbox, my sent items outweigh my inbox by so much that it seems like I am chasing ghosts. This is crazy, but I think I've applied to Riot Games at least 4 times in the last couple of years. I got an automated response for rejection for the first and I did not get any type of response for the succeeding applications. On my latest, I was so lucky to be personally rejected by a staff member. Lucky, because this time, there's some sort of a validation that there is a guy who's actually checking my stuff out. Lucky because this guy told me that persistent application would only ruin my chances getting in. Lucky, because I got my portfolio critiqued and gave me a few pointers. Lucky, because, in a sick delusional way, I think he thinks I got what it takes because he wouldn't waste his time rejecting me and giving me pointers if he thinks I couldn't. (Or, you know, it might be a good way to shut me up for at least a good year or so haha!)

You see, i have this feeling that good things are right around the corner, but I've had this feeling for so long that I kinda don't trust it.

Here's a question. What if that's just a saying that isn't necessarily true? Meaning, what if, at the end of the day, his idea of a good thing does not align with your idea of a good thing. Will you stop doing art? Does it really matter if there's anything good that comes out of it? Let's say, if there isn't a good thing at the end of the proverbial rainbow. Say, if the end will not justify the means. Will you stop doing this? And most importantly...

Why is there a koala in Alabama?

[Amit Dutta]

I am going to chime in as a working pro.

1.  This existential angst thing we all put ourselves through before we make it is crazy. You realise how crazy when you've come out the other end of the first part of it ("making it AS A PRO") and realising you just went through the easy shit. I'm serious. This thing that you are going through now, believe it or not is actually the easy stuff, because all you generally have to deal with is uncertainty of skills, and the practicing to make them better...it's that simple. 

Wait till you have to support yourself for real on the art and you have no gigs, bills up the ass, and you are faced with chucking it all in to clean toilets after having gone through the hell of self-teaching for half a decade or more. But you are a pro right? Everyone says so. Yeah not nice.  This all means you should take every step you can to make it easier for yourself in your own attitudes and mind.

One thing I think will help is this: Attributing art as the only means to happiness + success is a ridiculous notion, so do not stake your entire present happiness on this one hope for the future. It is a terrible way to live. Just do the art because you enjoy it, and yeah sure keep in mind your goals and be accountable to them, but don't fuck yourself in the head more than you need to by giving this angst more crucial importance than it needs. Seriously ask yourself why you feel this bad, if art is something you supposedly enjoy? When I did this (someone gave me the same kick in the ass I am trying to deliver to you now and I listened), I realised I was making myself miserable, and it didn't have to be that way no matter what state of development I was in. It took me 7 months of time of not doing any art at all to figure that out. Every single major pro I have talked to has told me "don't sweat the time, don't drive yourself nuts" and when you feel overwhelmed get back to play with your art.  I totally agree with them.

One last thing about making it to pro is, it is still just another fucking job, believe it or not. You provide services, people pay for it. It ends up being about contracts, deadlines, customer service, scheduling, billing, marketing, things that have little to do with drawing fairies. You will exdperience being bored stiff by the work, dragging your feet, taking longer than the half hour lunch break, and dreaming of your own projects before too long. The learning curve on the business side is also pretty steep but few take it into account beforehand. I personally quite enjoy that side but I think not that many people out there are really well prepared or are capable of doing it long term to be honest. I think freelance takes people and chews them up and spits them out at a healthy rate. You gotta be fucking tough and flexible and more than that you have to be disciplined. Better start forcing that discipline into yourself early is what I wish someone had told me haha.

2.  Don't make art the only way you can derive your identity. It's just not true and leads to stress and angst. See point one above. Instead, get engaged in the world around you, follow your interests, experience things, reflect on them...then bring that back into your work because it is enjoyable for you to do it. That's what doing art is anyway really, a reaction to living...isn't it?

3.  Yes, I think your characters and portraits and skills still need work. I mean we all need to work on stuff, and the idea that there is a "hard" skills barrier is a little ludicrous, as certainly it is different for everybody, but there definitely is a point where you sense that you have crested the skills barrier. Eventually the opportunities to get that validation did start coming in from outside, but that doesn't mean you suddenly stop and say "oh I've made it...yippee" Not really.

For you I still see too much airbrushing and perhaps a little more control of edges and form needed. Sometimes your rendering is phenomenal but then it is interspersed with some much lower quality stuff and the contrast between those two sometimes within a single piece makes it look fairly disjoint and amateur-y. The overall look isn't quite there. "Too airbrushy" in general also is what comes to my mind. I think you could spend a lot more time on facial and figure structure and construction in perspective. Practice the construction phase more than the rendering phase for a while...ace that first. But improving all that is just about focused practice and taking on critique.  That's the easy part.

I will now be honest, so don't take offence at my words, but that goofy stylisation you have going on with a lot of your portraits where they all look like they have some form of Down's Syndrome, I don't see as working for many people in a marketable commercial sense. I am NOT saying that you should stop doing this, nope, if that's what you want to do who am I to tell you otherwise.
But you should realise that working for clients they will want you to do stuff that looks like a whole bunch of other stuff out there, and not much out there requires heavily distorted caricatured faces like that. It's the reality of commercial work. Just learn to do regular faces really really well bro.
Eventually, you can become known for doing your own thing and style, and people start to come to you for that, but yeah generally you will have to cut your teeth on a bunch of generic looking stuff. Doesn't mean it can't be insanely fun, it definitely can, so you don't have to feel like you are selling out or anything.  In fact this whole concept of "selling out" is totally ludicrous. Go the way you want, and if the way you want involves wanting to paint art for money, which affords you time to do things more personal to you...would you call that a sell out, or just being smart? Yeah get rid of these built up notions of what a true artist is...just do work you want, and be SMART about it.

In general digital portraits...there is probably not a huge commercial market for. Perhaps you could start your own little side business doing that for locals off live sittings or photographs, and eventually get some income from that, but then you actually have to start doing them for real and marketing it, and I think you have to be more realistic to life, or be good at recognizable caricatures, rather than a generic distortion of all faces in the same way. There is little additional design work in most of your portraits that I would say allow your work to be picked up for character design jobs. So perhaps think about doing more design and showing the character behind the character, rather than it just being a rendering exercise of a face.

4. To get jobs you have to apply for them. Period. To apply for them you need a folio. Period. dA is not a good folio. Use artstation if you must use a generic art website gallery. AD's specifically hunt on art station often for artists now. There may be the odd lucky bastard out there who gets inundated with gigs when they first start on the strength of one piece alone, or they have been doing it long enough that they have a good return client base and rep. But the truth of the matter is if you don't have a dedicated folio and apply for jobs (especially for freelance) and send your stuff out and make connects and do good work over and above what is expected of you every time, nobody will give you one on a platter. That is totally wishful thinking. 
A third to a half  of my time is spent on researching potential clients and marketing my shit to them, doing contract work and business related activities. A third to a half, and I still have dry spells! In fact you could say my entire first year is like a big dry spell, that I only now seem to be coming out of...but who knows for how long.

ok blah blah. Basic list. 
Stop overthinking/angsting more than necessary. Just keep arting (unless a break is what you need, then take a break). Attack your weaknesses. Be engaged in things you enjoy outside of art. Have fun with your work. Set honest realistic goals about what kind of work you want to do and then work steadfastly towards them. Create a folio, and start cycling work into/out of it. Start sending out and soliciting work, when you feel you are ready. For the love of all koalas, learn the business side of things as well and instill some hardcore military style discipline into your routine now...or yeah...it won't be pretty.

[Fedodika]

RickRichards: Thanks man, I appreciate i have a place to go and post these thoughts; It was the first time i did it and didn't really regret it, like i went to bed saying, I'm glad i wrote that.
Thanks for the link bro, i looked through it; I am going to make a new approach soon for things, i really wanna get work and i gotta do it right X

Smrr: I guess my problem is i love doing so many different styles, like a caricature style, a more sinister look, and the industry doesn't pay for that you know? And yes, offline i did study a lot, but it was more an inner journey; I don't exactly remember all that happened inside, i just remember it as being good and helpful. lolol FUCK THIS SICK JOKE <3 luv uz... 
I'm insanely self critical of my work, and in my response i'll leave a story that will explain why even more so.

John, Wow man, i really admire you have the tenacity to keep applying to places like that. I could never do that haha, maybe that's a problem of mine; Well the good thing of art being my ticket out, is it allows a lot of personal things, more than just independence to be aligned in my mind correctly. I do art for many reasons, one of them is a vengence, if only a way to prove some people in my life wrong. I know it's a silly reason, but it's very real to me. 

Your direct approach is so inspiring dude, i really wish i had that. I need to do that more myself; like what do i really wanna see and how do i push it out there... So much of art is psychological, fuck man, I gotta keep thinking.. and koalas can migrate <3

Amit: Man you keep it realer than real man, first let me thank you for your reply man, I was actually hoping you would weigh in because i always love your views and experiences man. 

First, yea unfortunately my reality is i put a lot of weight on my success in art because i have went a long way in other fields as far as learning skills like (metal) music (I put twice as much work into that as i have art over a longer period of time) and never got pennies for it. Being in bands, trying to record with idiots, i got burnt out on it man, never again lol. Same with writing, i wrote and self published a book at 17 and it failed. So this is like a last resort for me. 

I know it's a stupid way to live but that's my life man; It would be different had i not just quacked out on other creative fields and this being my first journey as far as learning a creative skill. I use it as fuel though, it's just kind of a necessary evil, I suppose, i really wish i could shake it because i know it's not healthy.

I'm so ready for that boring job part! I think there's so much riding on my personal success that it kind of outweighs how miserable the working part may be; It could be as shitty as working at a grocery store (and i've done that) or even a very dangerous job and just the fact I'm working as an artist would satisfy a lot of things in me. But really, i do want to get into the business side and i think the reason i don't is because i don't even like my own work and that makes me hesitant to send out portfolios. I think i need to start on a portfolio and try to be consistent with marketable stuff..

What you say in 2. "follow your interests" is something i think i haven't done right. My head is just really confused as to what i should be doing, what i really want to see, and what i think i should do. then there's people who say "an artist should make it in 2 years, 3 years, 4 years etc." And that is adding to the insanity lol. 

I see what you mean about the lower quality stuff in my work here and there; that's a good point. The airbrush is a huge part of my workflow, and i've gotten that critique since i started painting really. Believe me though, i am working a lot to fix my problems with edges and i suppose i could try more hard brushes. I am practicing construction a lot more, and I notice things everyday I used to get wrong, like things being skewed, or displaced etc. 

Now on the Down Syndrome thing, boy i got a story about that. My best buddy was at a party and he met an actual pro comic artist. They talked a bit and he ended up showing the dude my portfolio and he just said, "I hate it. I really fucking hate it. The faces look retarded." I never met the guy, so it was just his raw opinion of the work. It hurt man, really cold you know. Also posted my work on imgur wasn't a great experience either; If you look at my DA you can probably see exactly where those experiences happened, like a radical shift in what i was doing. 

I never met anyone personally who said they like that style of face, and people have questioned my respect of women, they'd say things like, "Do you think women are just stupid or something?" It's kind of funny how much people overlook everything else that may be done well in the picture for just the face. It's a really significant part of the image.

 I mean i did try to stop that from pieces i would post other than CD, because i know most people don't like it; some people however do like it and i can reference several artists who do draw in that style who are pros; But i wouldn't consider it selling out if i were to stop. I'm going to do a whole new portfolio that will be accessible to AD's and maybe people who want book covers. 

I don't want to do just portraits, I only did them because I wasn't great at other things at the time like anatomy or laying in scenes. 

Thanks again Amit, I'm gonna hit the reset button on my portfolio and really develop a marketable style, then actually find some AD's and email away. Keep being real man, much respect.

Here's a study because i don't like posting without a picture. Thanks for the feedbacks everyone, i needed it  and i am grateful you all exist. And if you have a sketchbook and you have difficult feelings at some point don't be afraid to post them, because it can help other people on their journey so much to see that they are real human emotions. <3

[Amit Dutta]

No worries man, hope it helped. Gotta respond to a couple of things

First, yea unfortunately my reality is i put a lot of weight on my success in art because i have went a long way in other fields as far as learning skills like (metal) music (I put twice as much work into that as i have art over a longer period of time) and never got pennies for it. Being in bands, trying to record with idiots, i got burnt out on it man, never again lol. Same with writing, i wrote and self published a book at 17 and it failed. So this is like a last resort for me. 

I think this is where you will benefit the most from actively trying to change your perspective.  Do you see the cycle you are perpetuating here?  Jump into a creative thing....get to a certain stage, burn out / "fail", move onto something else. Pour all your effort into succeeding at the new thing as a way to prove yourself.  Now it's at the point where art is your "last resort" It must be pretty unpleasant inside that Koala head if this is the case.  It is not a last resort at all. You are just doing it now. Why make it so loaded?

I personally wouldn't view the music as a failure at all. It is something you did for a while and then you moved on. The writing is the same deal. And actually to conceded defeat at 17 with only one book that didn't make it, is really kinda throwing in the towel before you even got started!!  Most writers get rejected a thousand more times than artists do. The eventually successful ones keep going regardless because it isn't mostly about the success for them. it's about the love of the craft. Do you only judge success at a creative endeavour by how much dollars it has provided for you? Well then go make contemporary modern art.

You say that's just the way you are.  Maybe to some degree, but bollocks if you can't actively change your perspective if you are aware of it adversely affecting you. It requires some effort that's all. I suggest you make the effort, to rid yourself of this notion of future success in art as if it's some sort of ultimate reward or personal vindication for yourself and for other people's perception of your success.  When you get more success you might get that vindication and that's great, but to seek it will tend to make you scattered and lack focus because all of that is an externally driven motivation, not an internal one.

What you say in 2. "follow your interests" is something i think i haven't done right. My head is just really confused as to what i should be doing, what i really want to see, and what i think i should do. then there's people who say "an artist should make it in 2 years, 3 years, 4 years etc." And that is adding to the insanity lol. 

That's kind of what I was talking about above. You probably get swayed more easily by what people say you should be doing and get pretty confused and taken this way and that. I mean we probably all have gone through this to be fair.  But if you want someone to tell you, what is the right thing to do it is because ultimately you are probably also looking to others to deliver that validation you seek.
Na uh.  Ass backwards. The validation should be from being creative in itself. Then the act is its own reward, and reward enough. Eventually you will get better and start to get the external validation too.

K that's all I got.  Yeah keep going man! Do a bit of introspection. Decide you want to tailor a folio to stuff like book covers or character design etc, and start a deathline and get some folio pieces underway. In the other times, keep working on your technical weaknesses. If you just keep doing that, there is no doubt you WILL make it where you want.

[OtherMuzz]

Man these are walls of text....

Really you need to learn how to become a good draftsman, learn perspective properly, and copy accurately, and also put a focus on learning how to design appealing shapes. None of these things have clicked in your brain for how important they are yet and instead you seem to be looking for some magic elixir by copying stuff mindlessly. It's not a problem of style, or tailoring your portfolio.

Everything else is white noise that gets in the road of what is actually important.

[ThereIsNoJustice]

Hey, Fedodika. I looked at your dA and I think the primary issue that I see is light and form. The soft edge brush prevents you from doing convincing, dramatic shadows that show off form like Michael Hampton does here: http://www.figuredrawing.info/wordpress2...ng/h04.jpg

Basically you have cast shadows in your images, but you're shading them like form shadows. I bet if you go for dramatic lighting, sharpen cast shadows, and use them to describe form you'll see an improvement straight away.

The other thing is form/structure. When you draw something it really is best to have some idea of perspective, planes, 3d... I'd suggest more structural drawing. Your faces will start to turn out better when you make them out of 3d building blocks.

[Fedodika]

Thanks amit for all the help; and you guys I appreciate all the input!

I'm feeling a lot better. I recently stumbled across the symmetry tool and wow it was a game changer; it's made it incredibly easy to design things! I know these are all orthographic and flat, but man it really lets me see how much visual library i had stored up! It's so fun designing now,  and so easy, but it's so tough to draw it in 3d space with a cool pose; hmm i need to do a fuck ton of gestures... Also been copying Paul Richard's stuff a lot, he has a ton of infinitely inspiring recources on his site.

Gonna try to copy all his stuff at least once before the year is over :)

Looking at my recent art, my mind goes from "Man this is lame" to "Man i wish i could draw that in a cool pose."

Sooo it is really challenging to do these designs justice in a cool comp, so i def got something to work on! I feel like i've found a new world that's fun to work in and one that i wish i'd found years ago

I wanna make the first one into an illustration, but my friend likes the fourth one; both are really challenging to draw for me rn lol; none of them have boobs i know, but we'll get there eventually lol

[Fedodika]

Here's some good bad and ugly, mostly ugly lol. Don't go easy on me

[dodeqaa]

Paul Richards is ace to learn from!

When you are copying, you must pay attention to how he defines his shapes/volumes/forms cleanly and with great economy.

The pieces you've been doing show great amounts of exploration. However, you should consider defining the structure, nail down the large, medium and small shapes/volumes/forms so you can see clearly if the design is working out or no.

Its tempting to work abstractly and leave the clean up till later, but if your mind wanders off during rendering, more often than not the forms get botched.
Also, the design might not work out as great as you thought it would and cleaning it up during render only to find that out can be pretty tiring and discouraging.

Abstraction is great for discovering interesting shape and colour variations, but its weak when it comes to defining the shape/volumes/forms relationships that make up a well designed thing. For that you really do need to bite the bullet and resolve the shapes/volumes/forms in space.

Its tough to overcome an invisible challenge so define the changes you want to see in your work and see them through practically.

Hope it helps and good luck!

[Fedodika]

Last three syllables of my name: Heheh thanks man; the more i study Paul the more i realize this is a world i never really tapped into. Unfortunately i didn't study this way earlier and took a more classical approach to my training, learning like really fancy painting techniques and really accurate anatomy. I feel like if i had studied this first it would have taken me further financially, since most people's reaction to my older works is lukewarm, though they like the colors. Whereas people who study design and structure get a better reaction since they have solid ideas, i only have fancy suits to put on my mediocre ideas. 

 I could go on for hours about how much more important drawing is than painting, since I'm a perfect example of that haha.

Stuffz

[dodeqaa]

Hmmm, don't think painting excludes drawing. 

If one were to paint a shaded cube with 3 colours you still need to lay down the paint into a shape that expresses the cube. To paint without measurements,proportion and perspective (drawing); along side colours of the right value and temperature  you wouldn't express the cube in space well.

I would advise letting go of all the labels and focus on what the visual difference between your work and what commercial work is out there is.

I comped a comparison between your demon sketches and Paul Richard's more demonic work. 
See how he uses 2 to 3 values to paint in the shading to help define the planes expressed by the linework?




The lines are sketchy and loose, but all bend towards expressing the 3 dimensional qualities of what he is designing.
Your ideas are neat! But I feel with cleaner execution, you can express so much more clearly the vision you have. 



I also did a paintover of the portrait of the girl, my own intepretation of course, different from what you have in mind, to bring up some areas i think can be improved. 




The use of desaturated dark and highlight colours on her lips, eyes and eyebrows give a dirty feeling.

Also, the the transition between planes of colour are patchy, with hard edges calling for attention in areas of soft form transitions. 

The suggested texture of skin pores is well done, but should be added on after the large and medium forms are modeled.

The anatomy of the jaw should be shaded to reflect a receding forms from her chin towards the neck. Painting it all in a single colour flattens the jaw. 

All in all, you can spend a little more time cleaning out your shapes, it would express your image better instead of distracting the viewer from the quality of your vision. 

Hope it helps some, keep truckin' Koala!

[Fedodika]

Last 3 syllables of my name: You know what dude, i think you might have said what i really needed to hear, and the picture example just said everything; Something just clicked for me idk... seeing it side by side it all made sense. Soo.. I guess I'll try to show and not tell because, hopefully the process i'm trying now will show i'm understanding what most of my critiques are talking about.

But yea in short i had a really friggin productive day, and well; I guess I feel like a pokemon who is a high level but only knows one move. Time to learn and refine some more moves. If i could rep you 10+ i would

[dodeqaa]

Heyo,

Much better, keep checking how well your volumes read though, some of the images towards the end are hard to read.

Every stroke, line, patch of hatching you make should go towards expressing the volume. If you need to, you can scribble loosely to get shapes, then put a layer filled with white at 50 % ontop of your scribble, then create a new layer and drawing the cleaned up lines on top of that.

I did a paintover, whether you choose line and hatching, line and fills, or just pure values. The form should be expressed with convincing shapes (structure/perspective) and colour (values in relation to light and space).




Keep pushing yourself to check and correct your shapes and values for how convincing they are and itll become second nature in no time. When you are tired, analyzing the work of artists to see how they do this can help you practice the same principles in a different fashion.

Keep truckin' Koala!

PS: Glad you found it helpful, sorry im typing this in a hurry hehe. Appreciate you wanting to rep 10+ :D keep improving and that'll do better than mo reps!

[Fedodika]

(Fe)DODEQAAA!!!! Thanks for all your helps! (one day u will turn into a koala...)

Welcome back to cringefest 2016

Cuz I'm only a man, do what i can!

[Fedodika]

Hey guize, :) here's some more stuffz, trying to make a cool dragon piece, really frustratin! lol, composition is hard but mayne if you get it right that paintin is EZ!