Getting something done

[Tamaira]

Hi guys, this is my first post here except for the Introduction thread :)

Currently I'm working on a mermaid piece. My boyfriend told me that the biggest problem with me is, that I study all the time but I never try to tackle a whole piece and finish it. So after he saw the first sketch for this one, he suggested that I finally try. It won't be perfect, but he thinks that through finishing something I will learn a lot about the process. And it sounds right to me. So here is how far I'm now.

It would be really great to get some feedback from you guys which helps me to get it done. So thanks for dropping by and helping me out : ) Oh and I drew mainly out of my imagination, because I wanted to see how far I would get with it^^

[Chiritsu]

Not entirely sure what the story is for your picture but here's a quick paintover none the less.
I hope you can understand my notes and these are only my 2 cents on the whole thing.
So a quick break down is...

I think you may want to do some female anatomy studies so you can get a hang of how to draw the female form. There are some parts in the drawing where it feels like their limbs are broken or out of place.

Material studies might be a good idea just so you can re-define your background that you're thinking of having and that way when it comes to drawing/painting different kinds of surfaces (scales, coral, jelly fish etc)

Also variations in your composition. Currently it feels like that you're only drawing in the space you've given yourself which seems super restrictive (makes sense in a sketchbook since all the page sizes are the same..). The good thing we have with digital is that we can make a really big canvas quickly, draw what we want, then crop it to our preferred size without waste of resources :D

The perspectives in the drawing also feel strange. I understand that you want to make the picture nice and dynamic. Just be careful with this kind of thing as it is easy to make a picture feel off set..

Last of all, think about the characters silhouettes. What makes it so you can read that it's that certain character right away etc.

Roughly blocking out what you want might illustrate what you want in an image first will save time in the long run. Rendering too quickly means you're committing to the lines you may have only roughly placed in the first place.

I'm also definitely interested to see where you go with this piece with your rendering style atm. Hope this helps :p

[ChantalFournier]

The first thing you have to do is thumbnails. Very small quick dirty thumbnails, but a crapton of them. Here are a few posts about thumbs:
Composition Basics: Value Structure
Composition Basics: Sketching Thumbnails

Do not render anything until you have a thumbnail that works. It may take 10 or it may take 50.

The second thing you have to think about it overlapping stuff. Things sitting primly side by side are boring.