This thread is for "Advanced Critique". If you have a piece that you want to improve and need advice, or if you just want to improve your work in general, you can post your work in this thread. BEWARE:: Posts here will be HONEST and may at times seem harsh. Do not post up your art if you are not prepared to have it analyzed. Consider yourself forewarned.



IF YOU ARE POSTING ART:
> Please only post one drawing at a time, not just a link to your gallery and say "crit away".
> Follow the other guidelines of the forum.
> Try to accept crits with grace


IF YOU ARE CRITIQUING:
> Just because you're giving a crit, doesn't mean you get to stop being polite. Try to phrase your crits in such a way that it's not offensive, remember, this is a person's CRAFT. Be HONEST, but BE NICE.

> Critiques point out both GOOD and BAD. It's not a rule, but as a personal guideline, the best crits will point out an equal number of good poitns and bad points. Once you're out of good points to mention, stop pointing out bad points, unless the artist specifically requests you to "crit it to shreds". Conversely, if you can't find anything *bad* to say, don't go on and on about how awesome something is. That's not the point of "advanced critique".

> Try not to do a "draw over" unless the artist asks for it. In the art world, doing it without permission is considered by some to be VERY rude. Also, try not to point out pieces you've done to illustrate a point. If you think you draw better, that's fine. That doesn't make you more important.

> BE SPECIFIC: "I just don't like it" or "this sux!" ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE CRITS. And I WILL come down on you for trolling if you post such things. If you're not *sure* what's wrong, just mention that "something seems off... around the nose" or something like that.

> Lastly, if you're new to art, or don't draw, or don't really know how to crit... do us a favour and DON'T CRIT. If you're new and want to learn to crit, that's fine. Also feel free to just watch and learn, you'll probably learn a lot!


Sorry for all the words, but a crit thread can go horribly horribly wrong
HAVE AT IT!

Added after 8 hours 16 minutes:

C'mon, don't be shy

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

I like this idea.
Spike for President!!

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DevinatArt / YouTube / Blog / Facebook

This I can do

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"Worst case scenario I'll get arrested for public nudity.
Best case scenerio I'll get arrested for public nudity with a boner. It's win win." ~ Dave
"Also Yoshi is the most important person in all of Australia." ~ Zepherin

Im always trying to improve my art so i think im gonna post here!

EDIT: here is somthing.


Name: Joe

BTW: the arms are bigger than normal but thats becouse of the style i Chose.

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His left/our right shoulder could be brought in a bit and the other could be drawn more behind him to help his angle, looks like both shoulders are infront of his body, not one in front and one behind. Facial detail could improve. The hairline is also bugging me, but that's because I keep seeing his bangs as the top of his head, so it looks flat, but that's just an optical illusion and not how you actually drew it.

Also, your sticking quite a bit to the "outline" style of drawing (we all do, I think though), and although your shading isn't too bad, you could really use a lot more contrast on this.

Still looks dang good. The coats neat, the round style of it kind of clashes with the sharp style of the face for me though.

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DevinatArt / YouTube / Blog / Facebook

im not so good in English so i didn't quit get it all but thanks for the advise. altrough could you be more pesific on the facial detail?

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Otamie, the two biggest problems I can see here are in the eyes and the shoulders. Even though there are glasses on the character, it's still important to know where the eyes *are* in order for it to look realistic. Right now, the glasses are too high up. They should be lower and "deeper" in the face, because eyes are inset.

The shoulders are also a problem, they don't connect properly to the body. It may help to look in a mirror, because you have the benefit of actually *being* a guy, so you have a good model to study. Take your shirt off ( oh yeah, baby (jk)) and study for awhile the way your arm connects to your torso when you hold your arm in different positions. You'll notice that there are muscles that connect them together, most importantly one that goes from just below your shoulder to your pectoral muscle. That's the one I use in my drawings to get it to look right Also, for the outside, there is a "3 head" rule for shoulders, which means that the width of your shoulders is 3 times the width of your head.

Remember to study from life!

Otherwise, I really like the character. He looks very "cool" and suave, and I really like the way his coat looks.

The shading is really cool too, it adds a lot to the picture Great job!

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Thanks for the Advice, I will use it for Future drawings!!!


BTW: i also learnd somthing while drawing this dude. I started with the hand and than i made the sword but it lookt like Crap, so i dit it over and over but it didn't work. till i decided to draw the sword first and than the hand. that was a much easyer and better looking way.

just to say, that drawing the object first and than the hand that holds it is a very handy way to draw those things!! (at least i think)

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This is very true, in fact, I find holding swords to be one of the trickiest things to draw. For reference, it's good if you can find a cylinder that's about the same shape as a sword hilt. Or, of course, you can always just get your roommate to pose for you.

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Edit: Remote linking of DeviantArt removed.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/18163762/

One thing I can take and give out in huge loads, is criticism. So please, criticise away, I assure you I won't take any offence to anything said. Hell, tell me to stop drawing altogether, just tell me why . But hey, if you're not going to say anything bad, don't say anything at all .

Edit: For those of you who didn't goto the link, this is the description-
"This is my first Deviation, it's a drawing I did pixel by pixel of the main hero of my comic book. (Apologies for the poor quality logo on the background, I added it quickly as the background looked incredibly bare).

Critique is highly HIGHLY encouraged, I will not take any offence to any level of criticism, and all comments are welcome as long as they are backed with reasons."[/u]

Hey, Psytrese, just so you know, Deviantart doesn't allow remote-linking. They could ban you for doing that, and most of the time it dosn't work. If you want to have images show up in threads, you should put it at imageshack, picaroni, or photobucket, all which allow remote linking.

I'll give it a crit once I can see it Can't visit DA right now.

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Oh crud, I really didn't know that.

Don't tell anyone, haha.

And sorry about the front hand, it looks completely out of place, the reason being, that I screwed it up the first time and had to re-draw it but I did my best to make it look alright by putting heavy shadow between his bicept and forearm. Critique away.

http://groups.msn.com/phantomuprising/drawingsbyme.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=233
http://users.cjb.net/phantomuprising/GhostColoured.jpg

Sence I would like to know what I can do better I give you my first Photoshop inking.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/19300377/

Psytrese, that art looks... familiar. Did you use references?

NetGhost, the inking job's not bad But it looks a little jagged. Computer inking is hard, it might be better if you built it up by reducing the opacity of your brush. An alternative that's slower, but more fluid, is using the pen tool.

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Well I did use the pen tool throughout the whole thing. The reason it looks jagged is because I used a pen path around the lines going from pixle to pixle. I can't use free draw because I have tryed it before and it turned out horable.

what, really? I would have used arcs... y'know how you click on one point near the beginning of a segment, and one point near the end of a segment and you use the "grab joints" on either end to control the shape...?

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Psytrese, up your jpeg quality.

NetGhost, practice. The main flaw I see with it is that it's boring. Shading wouldn't hurt either.

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DevinatArt / YouTube / Blog / Facebook

Ok, thanks for the advice. I'm not realy sure how to shade though. I asked Cali but he was not that much help.

Well, I see you used the gradient tool, which is kind of a shortcut, but they're all going in the same direction, so that's a good start.

Basically, this is where some classical training would come in handy.

Every object, when put in light, will have some kind of shadow. I'm sure you knew that but to improve, you'll need to start really *watching* how different objects react to light. The intensity of light, their shape, their material and texture... all affect how the shadows will work.

So first, you need to establish where the light is coming from. Then, you need to imagine the shape of everything in your picture (the contours of the body, objects on the body, clothing, folds...) and how it would react to where that light is coming from-- where the shadows would be.

How you render the shadow is totally up to you. Basically, you just need to find a way to darken the areas that will be in shadow and lighten the areas that are in direct light It takes a lot of practice, observation and finesse of course

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Ok, thanks Spike.

I posted my art here for critique, I didn't post it here for you to critique the quality of my JPEG.

As for reference, yeah I used Batman as a reference. It's one of the only pictures that I have where I used someone elses pose, but the others are only penciled and I was kinda hoped for someone to help me out with colouring using Photoshop.

This is the picture I used:
http://groups.msn.com/artofjimlee/jimle ... hotoID=710
You'll notice I've tried to change it as much as I can whilst still using the parts of the pose I liked the most (the legs especially are pretty much the exact same). The colouring is completely my own, which is why it sucks so bad, haha.

It's important to say that you used references when you post art somewhere. To be honest, I could tell, and some artists are offended when you do that without crediting them.

I would recommend not using reference like that if you really want to improve.

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

I post this one mainly for the subject of foreshortening. I think in some places, I got it mostly right on, but in others, such as the right arm (left from the viewer pov) don't look right. I think the angles may be strange. Let's see what you all think.

Foreshortening is really tough. It's really one of those things that doesn't have a lot of guides and rules and takes a lot... a LOT of practice.

But, for this one, the hands don't seem to have a large enough difference in size to equate for the amount of foreshortening there is. If you take your fingers and measure from tip to wrist... they're almost the same. Same for the foot, but not as much. Probably the most important thing to keep in mind when doing forshortening is that the rules of anatomical proportion must be sound for it to be pulled off.

On the forward reaching arm, you've got to be very VERY careful and really plan out where the arm is going. The upper section of that arm looks like it bends down too far to be plausible, the upper line of it should angle upwards just a little more... like a foreshortened tube.

Since the bulk of the forearm is mostly "squat" (or straight on to you, I guess) it looks about right, because the shortening effect is countered by the thickening of the arm.

The hand itself seems a little off... I think the curvature of the wrist is what's bothering me. It should be more oval and less flat. Examine your own wrist when it is bent mostly over. It may have also helped the image if the fingers were arched up a bit more, like a claw, to give it more action.

The back facing arm also has a problem section in the upper arm. If it's meant to be angled directly upward, the upper arm isn't long enough. If it's meant to be reaching back a little, the connection with the forearm isn't quite right for the angle. It's tough.

Other than the arms, which is the hardest part, it looks absolutely awesome. I love the colouring, especially in the rocks and her hair

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Yah, I havent had much practice with foreshortening. In school, the models picked the most BLAH poses (like standing straight up, and standing straight up with legs crossed, or sitting in a chair!). It's not too often that I can get my friends to pose for me... lazy bastids.. So, for now, all I have is my Hogarth book. 0-0