TheAlmanac's Art Critique thread Returns.

[ClockHand]

Advice: Go with (normal) human anatomy; study it, breath it and love it.

[AlmanacnamedTime]

like this?

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(yes, no?)

[Rubisko]

like this?

SPOILER! :

(yes, no?)

No, I actually think that what clock said was an extremely profound (especially for him) way to say that you should study proportions and anatomy. If he didn't then it is what I say. It's a standard critique to beginner artists so don't get discouraged by it. Besides it actually applies to almost every artist; there is always something to learn about how to draw the human body. You might want to look at "Figure Drawing For All its Worth" by Andrew Loomis, it's one of the best books in my opinion, and it's also free to download. Just google it.

And just generally for the mecha design: if you want it to look humanoid: draw a human and then sculpt out the mech features.
For the guy with the sword; there's a reason there are no swords of that size irl. Look at Cloud from ffvii, he's known for using ridiculously huge swords, and they are still not even close to the size you've drawn.

Yeah, I'm sorry that I don't give to many words of encouragement so here are some: If you actively try to improve your art then you will see huge improvements in just one or two weeks, it's just a matter of knowing where you should put the effort glhf

[AlmanacnamedTime]

Actually, you have not hurt me at all. THANK YOU! (seriously). the reason why I made this is to learn where to look at improving.

[Egoslip]

My general advice for beginners man, is to just practice drawing what you see. Get used to the idea of lines, edges, and planes in a 3 dimensional space. After you get this very basic concept down, then I'd say start studying anatomy. The reason for this, is you understand how light hits the many different planes and angles the body is made up of. You even learn to break the human body down into smaller more basic shapes in order to get the proportions right, then you sculpt slowly using shadow, contrast, light, local color, and a lot more concepts that all tie into the finished products of fully colored pieces. Pretty sure that book that Rubisko up there recommended will get you started just nicely .

As for the critiquing of your work, well.. it's not so much as changing small details like the cheek bones, but rather looking at how you came about the pictures. The more you look at something and draw, or use references, the more familiar you will become with representing a 3 dimensional world on a 2 dimensional canvas .. then you can alter and stylize how ever you want.

Hope that makes sense, I do ramble sometimes! Good luck and keep practicing.

[Gedeon]

Agreed with Ego. You'll need a lot of practice...as for the hand its pretty darn good. But try and practice more figures and for gods sake (trust me) start drawing buildings NOW!!!! I think im pretty good with human anatomy but when it comes tostreight lines and perspective ......Shivers.......

[Matt]

I was looking at the stuff on the first page and thought, yeah, standard beginner stuff. But that hand! Of course, it's not perfect, but it's a large jump from the faces. And about that--the faces look awkward mostly because you haven't done many of them yet. You're gonna produce tons of awkward faces before you start to "get it" so to speak. I suppose if you're drawing from reference, the best advice would be to draw what you see, not what you know.

[JJJorgie]

One quick thing to add to the third picture: The face (mouth and nose especially) are off center. Try using a ruler more when drwing bigger pictures.

[AlmanacnamedTime]

@ego it makes perfect sense.
@gedeon buildings are actually something I'm good at naturally, I'll upload some at one point.
@matt aight.
@jjjorgie i usually do, but it was a challenge to see if I could do it.


also my oc Sedgwick with fire:

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[AlmanacnamedTime]

Hey a WIP of a tree.
It's going to get colored as well.

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http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...ac-d5cetk1.png

When the scanner works I will put up some manga stuff.