Shadow's Art :) New work pg 13

[GaBo]

It would be beneficial to work on adding more contrast to your colored works. As it stands, shadows are flat and lend the paintings themselves little depth, and it can even become difficult to tell exactly where the light source(s) is coming from. More striking contrast would make your images more dynamic by far.

That said you appear to have a fair grasp of human anatomy thus far, which means you must be practicing that a lot. Just make sure you practice other things as well; a common theme I have always seen around here is a lack of emphasis on anything except the human form and unrealistic swords.

Hope to see more of your work soon.

[Shadowsfade]

@demon - thanks yeah I kinda noticed that the hair went a bit tendril like, but i guess i got a bit lazy and couldn't be bothered to correct xD i shall keep in mind your comment about shading on shirt i'm still trying to get a decent shading style / get decent at shading in general :P so shall help and glad you like the clothing, i suck at coming up with clothing designs xD

@GaBo - thanks again on tips on shading pretty much same as what i said to demon, but again it shall help me practice with it more. it's also nice to hear that my anatomy isn't too bad! i do do a little other things too, ive tried drawing a few animals, but havent posted any - i wanted to get human anatomy down before i tried too much to expand into other things, but now that i know my anatomy is fairly decent maybe i shall try expanding

Well here's a WIP for the weekly theme challenge, 'autumn'. it's sort of a redraw of a picture i drew a year or two ago of a girl on a swing in the snow, decided to change it to fit the autumn theme that being said, it's a complete diff character design, so really by redraw i just mean 'stealing the idea' xD i've sketched the starts of the clothes over the top, so hopefully it's clear enough to see all the different things as its all the same blue! anyway enough chatting, here it is:

[JJJorgie]

Cool concept, but there are a few things wrong with her anatomy. First off, a normal human can physically turn their heads a full 90 degrees without their shoulders moving a little. Here's a quick picture of what her upper body should look like more or less:

SPOILER! :

Also, when you sitting on a swing, only your butt is in the seat. Your thighs slope downward:

SPOILER! :

These were the biggest two things I could find, so I hope it helps!

[Demonfyre]

I would really suggest using those images that JJ has posted up and using references, it will really help to cut down on those anatomical mistakes pointed out.

Some things I found is that you made the shoulders very broad (albeit that is more personal preference) but generally in manga/anime style you are wanting to keep it at about 1.5 head widths. I would also so say the hips are very thin, they almost look like they are only 1 and a bit head widths. Lastly on her right hand it looks like her index finger isn't joined to the hand or the rope has an index finger O_o

[Shadowsfade]

I made several changes - made the shoulders narrower, I agreed that the hips were much too thin! but didnt actually edit my sketch, as I had drawn the coat so loose that once the inside lines were erased the outline of the coat balanced things up again. I lowered the knees so that more of the thigh was "visible" (i say like that, as she's wearing a dress so I cant really draw much of their outline :P) - i hadnt been able to find a ref of someone on a swing in a pose that i wanted, so i had had to resort to using pictures of people sitting forwards on chairs (again of which i could only find 2!) and obviously, sitting on a chair you dont see as much of the thighs as on a swing, so thanks for that reminder! I didnt go quite to the extreme as in your pic JJ, simply because in my mind she's closer to the ground, so her legs are higher up if that makes sense

i also decided not to go with your comments about the upper body - both myself and my family were able to turn our heads 90 degrees whilst facing forwards without any of our upper body moving. when i get into shading though, i will show tension in the neck, as obviously that will be visible. so anyway, here's the next WIP, just shading to go really. is there anything else you can see now that its a bit clearer in colour? thanks for your help!

edit: oh i also decided to make the swing smaller, as it seemed very big, so i bent the ropes so that it just looks like shes pushing outwards i also made the swing less deep, so that she's sitting fully on the seat, to again account for the smaller amount of thigh shown

edit the second: anyone have any idea how to shade tights?

[Rubisko]

It looks very nice Shadowsfade There are three things that you can easily fix to make it even better;
1. Why does the image cut of part of the hand and corner of the swing? That's what I think when i see this, and that mystery outweigh your actual drawing. Move her to the side and draw in the missing parts
2. Ropes only curve under two conditions: There's either no force along the rope or the rope is stretched vertically but the force is not bigger than the gravitational force on the rope. In this drawing neither of those conditions should apply, so stretch the ropes (draw them straight)
3. Avoid weird "coincidences", especially tangents. You have a lot of them in the coat; first at the sleeves by the rope, At the collar and armpits, and at the bottom of the coat, where the fabric in front line up with the fabric behind. Every tangent is a missed opportunity to show off depth, and in the worst case it may even be confusing for your audience. Decide what element you want to be in front in each case, and then draw it in a way so that there's no doubt that it is in fact in front of the other element.

To paint the tights you need to decide how thick they are first; if they're thin enough light will refract and reflect into her skin, giving a slight red tint in places. Use strong reference for the best result, as always.

[Demonfyre]

Like this I guess;



Also I noticed that the chain she is wearing around her neck kind of kinks upwards which doesn't make much sense to me as gravity is pulling it down, and she doesnt appear to be on a slope that would be great enough to negate the effect of gravity.

Lastly I think the ropes of the swings are held in an odd way, they shouldn't bulge out like that as it isn't a solid, I would suggest making them go at a gentle incline up to the fixation point of the ropes with maybe a tiny bit of droop for gravity, but only a tiny bit and likewise for the fixation point on the swing seat.

I like the colours you have chosen looking forward to seeing step 3 of this

[Shadowsfade]

Rub - thanks a lot for your help, made the pic much better! the hand was cut off by accident really, i put her to the left coz i know from the rule of thirds its better to put your subject of focus on one of the thirds lines, and it just happened that as i started doing that bit of her body there wasnt room :P but yeah it was drawing weird attention, so i widened the canvas and added in the rest of her hand

thanks also for your tip on rope, it never occured to me, but as soon as i read it i was like 'duh of course thats what it does' !

demon, i hadnt noticed it had bulged funny, thanks xD and thanks both for your advice on tights. i used a ref off google for sort of opaque-ish tights, and the result wasnt too terrible hehe. remember it's a sort of sunset light in autumn as well

anyway, im pretty sure this is my last draft, as im quite pleased with how it is. i was originally thinking of a background, but then decided to fit with the theme and the lighting it needed a soft background, which i cant really do yet :P hence the airbrush lol. anyway, if there are any last minute things you see i shall try and change, though the deadline's thursday! for some reason when i upload the pic to this site, the red in her dress goes a bit grainy, but oh well xD

anyway, stop rambling and just post it



edit: oh also, when i went back to make the ropes straight as rub suggested i figured out how to make straight lines in sai, so that made them look better too lol

[BunnyVoid]

i like the concept of your work. i also comment your color picking abilities... maybe add a softer kind of depth, not too rigid. something like a gradient not like embossed.... i hope you get what i mean...

to soften the pose, try searching on tutorials on gesture drawings. exercises like those soften the body's direction, making it look more natural. Besides that, your overall artwork is nice--good composition.

[Shadowsfade]

thanks a lot do you mean like soft shading rather than cell shading? i should really attempt some more of that yeah and thanks, i shall try out some gesture drawing - i tried some of those 30 second pose things on posemaniacs months ago which are meant to be quite good at getting gesture drawing, but only did it once lol!