Stuck and looking for critiques

[Ravel]

Hello, I have been recommended this site by a friend, and I am looking for general critique.
Art wise I feel stuck and unable to register any sort of progress as of late and I would be glad if anyone could offer me some critique on my art.
My style is...I have no idea what my style is.
I am at a point that I no longer notice the faults myself, beyond the obvious fact that something looks wrong.
Harsh critique is encouraged.

My art:

[Artloader]

Hi Ravel, welcome to the forum.

I'm near the start of the art journey myself so won't be able to give you direct critique other than that I like how imaginative your work is.

I am studying the human figure at the moment so might be able to help with your figure drawing but it would be good if you could post more examples of your work - maybe some line sketches so I can see your construction approach?

On a more general note, this forum is full of people using some excellent study techniques and resources so I encourage you to browse through some of the Sketchbooks on here - you will pick up some really useful tips. Also - I definitely recommend starting your own sketchbook thread and joining us on the journey :).

Good luck :).

[Piotr Jasielski]

Hi and welcome!

My main issue with your work would be that it looks blured and some areas have too much value contrast.

As for the last one, it shows you really need to work on perspective as it is completely broken and it looks like she is sitting on a wall.

Good luck!

[Ravel]

[edit]
Piotr Jasielski

Thank you for your input. I see what you mean with both. I will look into correcting these.



@artloader  Not sure if pings work here.

Thank you very much!

I have wandered a lot quite a bit and the site is indeed filled with really useful things.

More examples of my work I have, sketches not that many. I have a tendency of disposing of them as they fill out space. Especially of the figure practice ones. These are a few that have survived by chance, and my sketches are never complex. I don't invest any time in them unless I am really bored. I was always more into colour to be fair.

Will just place the sketches here for now. I will attach only sketches to avoid over crowding the page.

[Artloader]

There are plenty of people on here that can give you critique on your painting as well Ravel so don't be afraid to post those as well.

Not sure what you mean by ping - some kind of auto alert when you tag my name?  I don't think we have that on here.

OK so I noticed a structural problem with your drawing of the boy with the black wings.  His left shoulder is a bit too high.  I've sketched in some construction lines to illustrate what I mean.  Hope this helps:

[Amit Dutta]

Hey Ravel, welcome.

If you haven't already, I would recommend creating a sketchbook and posting your work consistently in there. That way people can give you feedback as you go along your journey in that thread rather than in this single critique thread.

As Piotr mentioned, definitely pay more attention to perspective in general, and especially when constructing your figures.

Because you are doing a more anime style, it is really important to get your fundamentals in place really solidly first or you might be carrying on some bad habits when it comes to figure construction. I'd recommend doing some more focused structural and proportion studies on figures that are not stylised as well as doing more anatomy study. All your characters have issues in various areas, in the shoulders and hips, one that really stands out is where your necks are really too stretched and their eyes are placed too high up on their face quite often, and they have a huge cranial mass in proportion to their faces. I know this might be a stylised choice, but I can't tell if it is or you just haven't learned the right proportions. I'm guessing the latter.

Also definitely try to create a better value range (do grayscale studies, and use the values histogram in whatever program you use to analyse these and see how great painters arrange their values. More focused work on the hard/soft edge balance would be useful.

[Ravel]

Artloader
Ah, thank you for the paint over! That shoulder has been bothering me but I must admit that I did not manage to fix it although I tried.
Yea, the ping works as an auto alert system. Very useful.

Amit Dutta
I will take your guys advice and create one then.

It is funny but when in highschool I took perspective classes. I simply did not understand perspective at all back then. Have been looking around the site as well as in other parts since yesterday to see if I can find a tutorial that is not beyond my level of understanding.

First time I notice the eyes being too hight. The heads are supposed to be big, I just apply it in a defective way so it looks wrong instead. Been going for the big head and skinny bodies proportions but somehow things got whacked along the way. You know, the small faced big head anime monstrosities. Might just have to fix the head instead since these clearly do not fit.

I actually paint these in grayscale. The colours I add after. I just don't seem to grasp value too well. I do not understand it per say.
Know of any comprehensive tutorial? The ones on dA are not helping me any.

[Amit Dutta]

I would say learn proper proportions first, then you can stylise any way you want, but you will know exactly how to modify and break things in a way that looks right, rather than copying a certain style only.

I think you should also move away from this "tutorial mentality", which dA being dA is full of...and full of lots of rubbish ones to boot. Learning is not about following a set process, it's about developing and practicing in a way that increases your fundamental skills and knowledge.

Perspective.
Good resources
Scott Robertson: How to Draw book.
Ernest Norling: Perspective Made Easy (public domain, so can be found free online)
Loomis: Successful Drawing and Creative Illustration are both available free online (search for "save loomis"). They contain useful info on perspective as well. Get all his books, they are great.

Values
Muddycolors posts on value that are useful.
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/2012/0...cture.html
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/2012/1...nails.html
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/2015/0...ntrol.html

The way I learned values was to take master paintings with strong value compositions, desaturate them, and do a study of the desaturated painting. It is very useful to start with a restricted range of values say 3 to 4 like in the second link above to recreate the image. Then you can refine it further once you have the major compositions down by adding more values. I painted nothing but grayscale images for a month or two. No colour at all. It seemed to help a lot.

People will help you in the sketchbook thread with tips and stuff, if you ask in your posts. Also you can use the shoutbox. Sometimes it is quicker to get an answer that way! Good luck!

[Ravel]

I will move on to practising proper proportions then. Never practised in a way that it was not also stylized. Have to brace myself!

Oh wow. The posts are great. Thank you. Things make a bit more sense when looking at them than the tutorial things I have been using. I do not mind learning to move away from tutorials, as I could never make out anything out of them.

I will start practising and post my progress in a sketchbook.

Thank you again!

[Amit Dutta]

Cool, sorry I didn't mean to imply never look at tutorials...but don't rely solely on them :) Catch ya around!

[Ravel]

Yup, understood that. I did not mean never look at them either. Sorry. :)) I have difficulties expressing myself properly in English.