BV's Humble Corner (DUMP p10)

Hi MT netizens...
I'm new here. I happen to be also new in DA.
I've been lurking this site for a while and I find the critique corner very interesting. It showcases how people have improved over time. I also want to improve like those people.
Here are few of my works...

I dont really know how the spoiler tags work. I hope the image size is alright. Tell me if there's something wrong on my post but please be gentle... I'm not to keen with forums technology...


http://th09.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/...id-d5femlm.jpg
WIP Eira Seolfor, the protagonist for my story
I'm too fond of coloring hair cause its tricky. I like coloring lips though... I like them full...
is the pose okay? are the eyes weird? is the color scheme fine?

http://th05.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/...id-d5fbueb.jpg
Qayin Khevah, the antagonist for my story
i know there's something wrong with this pic but i can't really pinpoint it... asdaadhlkdfa... it's frustrating.

Very cool!

Is the first picture finished? It's very cute. The neck looks a little odd with it's chain/rope bent up like that.

The second picture's very nice. The sleeve shouldn't suddenly stop right when it touches the torso. Have it crease or go up a little farther. Also, those shoulder things look too heavy to just be floating avoe the sleeves. With that said, there should be some folds/creases in the sleeves resulting from the weight of them.

Very nice work! Spoiler tags go like so:

SPOILER! :

Picture's BB Code

@ JJJorgie: wow. you must be really kind. i recognize that you've commented in my welcome wagon post. :) i'm happy someone took notice of my humble corner. thank you. the first pic is unfinished because i don't like colouring hair. its really hard. thank you for pointing out the outfit mistakes. I'll go change them when i can...

i'll go look for tutorials for folds but if you have any recommendations i'll look into that as well...

for now i'll post my pencil sketches... my style kinda changes whenever i use digital medium. i like pencil better...

http://th06.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/...id-d5ff7fb.jpg
King Qayin again. The feet is horrible but i still tried to make them look okay... please teach me how to do them

Next would be the quick sketches for Titus Fiontan and Seth Alsius. Titus is my main antagonist' soldiers. He also happens to be a former student of Seth Alsius, father of my protagonist.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...id-d5ff7uz.jpg
This is Titus Fiontan, another character for my manga. He's one of King Qayin's soldiers. his rank is major. he has a team of soldiers too, i'll introduce them later... this is just a quick pencil sketch btw... so not to detail and clean...
ps: his looks is based off a popular korean boy band. free artwork request if you are able to guess

http://th01.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/...id-d5ff8j1.jpg
In my upcoming manga, Seth Alsius, is father of my protagonist (Eira Seolfor) and the mentor of my manga's anti-hero (Havel Khevah) and main antagonist (Qayin Khevah). Much of the story's events are caused by his previous actions. To many he is a legend, to his enemies a traitor, theif, and fugitive worthy of the ultimate punishment... probably one of my favorite characters in my story...

Next would be Titus' Team members.

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...id-d5ff99o.png
Lieutenant Raiken O'Donnor, member of Team Titus. His age is 20 years old. Teacher at Guardian academy... his powers are lighting based explosions

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...id-d5ff9ru.png
Here's Private Lleu Griffin. He's a prodigy, at the age of 16 he was able to graduate the academy and join Major Titus' team. He loves to wear costumes and has many artistic hobbies. His personality is very child like, almost always playing pranks with people around him. His powers are the legendary griffin's powers...

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...id-d5ffad5.png
Here's Lieutenant Vyr Gates, age 19. He has a dark character opposed to Raiken O donnor's sunny disposition. Always sarcastic. His powers are gravity control. He's one of Titus' favorite members. I'm not too fond of his design. I'll improve on it soon...

Please comment and critique... THANKS
- anatomy
- pose
- character design
- style
- anything actually...

Hi, so I'm going to leave a critique on character design, or rather on style and how to dress properly I guess. If you plan to draw so many characters wearing ties or cravats, learn how to tie them in real life. It probably won't take you more than an evening to learn, and I can almost guarantee that it will help you immensely. As it is they don't really look convincing or stylish

That said, I think that lips are a very important feature to consider on any face as well, it's nice to see more lip-centric people around :)

I struggled to find anything worth mentioning unfortunately, your artworks are great, I love the designs you invent! The only thing I find worth mentioning is on the King Qayin sketch his right leg is really straight and looks a bit akward, also the crotch area also looks like a block that stretches straight up into the leg which looks a bit odd to me. I love those head sketches and the way you draw the hair is great ^_^

Oh and thanks for taking the time to comment on my art, have a watch friend! :)

@Rubisko: thank you for dropping by. Now that you mention it, i dont know how to do a tie for real. It prompted me to download some more tutorials on clothing like you mentioned. its time to improve on those as almost all of my characters will be wearing ties. thank you for that.

@demonfyre: thank you, though i think i'm still quite lousy with design. i have to study drawing clothes some more... and maybe weapons too...
The lower half of the body is still one of my ultimate flaws. I hope to improve on that soon. I searched for some references photos on drawing crotches and pants to help. I will post when I get some sketching done.

for now i have finished my first colored post, Eira Seolfor, my main protagonist.
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...id-d5femlm.jpg
to compare here's the old one.

SPOILER! :

http://th09.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/...id-d5femlm.jpg

@JJJorgie: I changed the ones you mentioned... Thank you for that. I don't think i'll be able to change Qayin's folds though. I already deleted the psd for that... maybe ill draw him again sometime.

Wow, so much to comment on! I like the colour scheme and the eyes of your first pic, Eira, and your pencil sketches are great! i love the heads/faces of Titus and Seth.

You have a really nice line weight which gives your digital drawings a good style. Most things have been said already, so I would say have a look at some more shading tutorials - i see you said you don't like colouring hair, so you should make yourself colour more hair! if you dont want to spend all the time doing the linearts yourself, there is a lineart bank here at MT, in the 'drawing' section, so use some of those to practice with. Look up tutorials or youtube videos online and see various peoples' methods of colouring hair, and then adapt it to the way that you like most. I suggest doing the same for clothes - you shade skin and metallic surfaces well, but the material shading in both pics you've posted so far isn't really to the same level - it'll just take some practice!

Looks like you're drawing quite a lot of steampunk/pseudo-urban fantasy here, which I like. A lot. The biggest difference between us, though, is that nearly all of your characters are male while nearly all of mine are female.

On your digital works, your line work is really nice and your coloring is notably good. But I don't think they work well together. Blocky outlines are cartoony. Realistic shading is, well, realistic. It's possible to combine cartoon and realistic styles to great effect, but not with these elements. The purpose of soft shading is to eliminate the need for outlines, and the bigger the outlines are, the more the elements clash.

With soft coloring, use thin lines or no lines. Don't let the lines get in the way of the coloring.
With crisp, blocky outlining, use crisp, blocky colors.

Example of soft coloring/thin lines.
For an example of hard coloring and crisp lines, pretty much any anime works. I'm pressed for time right now--can't look for a link right now.

As far as manga is generally concerned, the less lines commited to face, the cuter. But I do think that your designs have a differant style completely which hosts it's own charm, so I would take alot of this advice with a pinch of salt. I really like how all of your characters look vastly differant from one another, in perticular, and I think the style adds to that. It really just depends on what kind of "hook" your stories go for, I guess...

Alot of the stuff about shading skill and compatability has been said, so I'll leave that out...

As for Eira, yeah, I think her right iris is a little small compared to her left, as you were originally questioning. This also gives it the impression of facing upwards too much, since there is a larger white space within the eye. Also, it's purely a design choice, but I do think her hair contrasted a little better when it was still the paler purple rather than the dark stuff you shaded it in...

But I digress. I still think you are one of the most talented newcomers on these forums for quite a long while. Hope you stick around. :3

I want to see more expressions. This is because, in each draw where the characters have no expressions or are very soft, it seems okay, but on the others, where characters are showing a little more expression, the design looks off. I want to see if this is just because these were isolated cases or is that you have a problem when managing expressions (so we could help).

Also I agree with matt about coloring. The color blend its too soft for the lines which make it look like painted lineart and not a complete tied piece. You could play with more blocky coloring, or you could make lines more thin. Another option is creating different levels of thin and wideness on the lines depending of light source or deepness, and play with different colors too. But I feel this is a problem you need to solve yourself, so experiment.

Finally I disagree with the idea that "thinner lines = cute", is not that line weight does a character cute or not, but it makes it lighter, it decrease the amount of black in the design and gave more priority to colors or white (empty spaces), so this makes thinner lines a more elegant design, rather than cute. Because to be honest, you can achieve cuteness with thin or wide lines, it doesn't mater, because these only provide weight, while other smaller elements are the ones who provide cuteness, or in other cases horror (man I love horror... I should study a little more about these type of design).