I need help, guys

[Gavinchi]

Hey, I've been in a bit of a rut for a while and I've stopped improving. I need some critiques on how the painting/design of this robot knight can be improved. Thank you.

[Psychotime]

I honestly can't make heads or tails of the forms. It just feels random to me.

[Gavinchi]

How do I go about fixing that? Just consciously making sure that everything kind of stems from something out of reality? And thank you for your input.

[mursu]

im bad at drawing mechanical stuff, so i shouldn't be giving advice on that to anybody.. but i guess for drawing robots you should study stuff like medieval armor, animals like crabs and lobsters, industrial robots, robots in movies and games (but i guess you are already doing that?)... and most importantly perspective.

i came across this video yesterday on shading, you should check it out http://youtu.be/-dqGkHWC5IU it will not help make your characters design look any less random, but i think it will help you to render better!

[Gavinchi]

Thanks for the advice, man! I'll study all of those things before I decide tackling another mechanical/armored object. (Currently watching video)