varbas is a noob

[Fedodika]

no I don't mean making characters is a waste of time, it's just rendering or painting one thing for many hours that has a very flawed base, in my opinion is a waste of time. I think it'd be better spent working on basic shapes and sure drawing characters but trying to get that base and structure more developed.

I've seen people who have the opposite problem that I think you have, people who are great at drawing but not great at painting.

http://jpeg96.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://bugfilter.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=/
http://bentanart.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24

But for them it's not so much a problem, since the drawing is good, people find their work appealing on the lines alone, and they can call their not you know, master level painting skills a style choice and it works.

And I know you've gotten a lot of compliments on your painting, I have a similar problem to you, that's why I kinda started getting back to it; Again, the rendering on that character you're doing is very impressive, especially the green cloak, the suble bounced lights, the textures etc. you have a very good handle on it, but his anatomy is so busted up and his proportions are so weird, it basically makes the views first impression of it really not what you'd want.

Maybe when you see it you feel proud of the painting, and you should, but people will subconsiously not be that excited by it because instinctively if something doesn't make sense in a drawing our brain turns off. Like if you draw a stickman with no head, people will say, "where's his head?" and like, as you do more and more complex stuff with realism, the more things you need to get right. Things have to make sense.

Right now, his proportions don't make sense. Like his hands are reeeeaaally small, and his arms are reeeaaaly long. Like, if he held his hand to his face, it would cover only up to his eyebrow from his chin, and people won't notice that, they'll say, oh awesome, but that really crucial thing will make them not excited about it. They won't be able to explain it. Also like his arm that's on his hip, it's tilted, right? But the way it goes into the bicep doesn't make sense. The little iron plate there is in perfect profile, wouldn't it be rotated? It's like it's a symbol of an iron plate, not a three dimensional one.

And your stuff looks kinda stiff you know, like there's just a straight line of action in everything.

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...study3.jpg

The one on the far left looks interesting because the curve of the body. But the guy you're painting could fit perfectly in a rectangle.

Watch the critique at 40 minutes so you get the idea, watch a lot of those crits if you can; could be a big help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MVP7O1mIxY

I'd also reccomend if you can going to schoolism and taking just one month of classes for 10$ they have a discount right now, and take Alex Woo's Gesture class. I took it and it showed me a lot of things to consider when making my drawings less stiff...

So no, doing characters is good, but taking weeks to paint them with a flawed base, is a waste of time in my personal opinon.