Whenrabbitsattack,they leave a big mess of drawings.

[whenrabbitsattack2.0]

ohaider
thanks for looking in on my thread

SPOILER! :

I'm working on this in groupboard currently. when I finish up I'll post the end product.

not exactly a spectactular sketch dump to start things off, but oh well. All crits and comments will be appreciated

[JJJorgie]

I know it's still a WIP, but trying varying your shading and highlighting colors more instead of just using different shades of the same color.

[theAnimeRebel]

? JJJ, isn't that what shading IS? (you don't use gray to shade) But true, use more white in your highlights, and darken the shadows. This should be... DYNAMIC (as in, make it jump off the page!) As is, it seems way too "pastelly" Not probably the effect you wanted to achieve

[whenrabbitsattack2.0]

@JJ-okay thanks, will do
@TAR-not sure exactly what you mean by pastelly......but yeah, i've always been kinda shadow shy >.>
finished dude. I hate his face so much *facedesk

[theAnimeRebel]

Heh heh... yes, the face has some problems there. O_O

Maybe you should experiment with your lines, make them bolder and such. (I'm a very "liny" person so...) Anyways, what I meant by "pastelly" was that you like to scratch out all your lines, no matter where the light falls. You see, when you have a light source, where the light falls directly is going to be kind of "fuzzy/glowy," but the areas of shadow should have harder lines. It's called light/line value, or something like that.

Here you go, take a look at this: http://www.portrait-artist.org/basic...dark-darks.jpg To see what I mean.

See how the lines closer to the light source are not as defined as the ones in the shadows? That's what I was trying to get at

[JJJorgie]

? JJJ, isn't that what shading IS? (you don't use gray to shade) But true, use more white in your highlights, and darken the shadows.

You don't know much about coloring skin, huh, Rebel. To you and WRA, the skin is composed of many colors (reds, browns, oranges, purples, etc.) not just different shades of the same tan, for instance.

WRA: Don't use whites for highlights, the skin doesn't naturally shine pure whites. Try light yellows, pinks, and blue. Here's a great reference for skin colors:

SPOILER! :

Don't be afraid to go really dark, especially with the shadows on the face. Also, don't forget that the hair will cast shadows, too.

[Demonfyre]

Put simply AnimeRebel appears to be talking about line weighting techniques used to to show where the light source is coming from, I think, it was hard to decipher. As in, the closer the light source the thinner the line, the further from the light the thicker the line.

I also somewhat agree that you are not being diverse enough with the highlights and I think you've used an odd colour to shade the skin with, however instead of making a long paragraph i'm just going to post two reference here for you;

NSFW;

SPOILER! :

I would say it backs up what JJ is saying, particularily with the different colours and not showing pure white and pure grey etc, but it also shows you the great diversity of shading, hope they are helpful

[Celestial-Fox]

I believe the primary issue is that you used a mid-value blue to do what is called "secondary lighting." Secondary lighting is a second light source with a different hue, typically cool in color (however, reds and oranges are popular for "campfire" settings). To see consistent use of secondary lighting, google Charlie Bowater's work.

What JJ is trying to say is that the skin reflects and absorbs different kinds of light so that the highlights and shadows you use aren't just "tan." The skin chart she posted was actually made by my favorite artist. There is a tutorial for how to use the chart available on Deviantart; her username is Navate.

Lauren K. Cannon (Navate) stresses that in order to create believable skin, you have to incorporate different colors into the entire shading process—not add the colors in afterward with an airbrush. That just flattens the shading and creates a nonsensically placed secondary light source. Instead, a good rule of thumb to follow for most background environments (though this rule is very easily flubbed once you get advanced enough) is: purplish shadows, warm tan midtones, yellow highlights, and super saturated light blue peak highlights (use only on nose, browbone, and sometimes cheeks).

Then go in and airbrush on low opacity red on the cheeks, and a greenish-grey under the eyes.

SPOILER! :

Here is an exaggerated example I painted in 2010. It was a one-hour speed paint, so the anatomy isn't fantastic, but the broader brushstrokes illustrate color theory pretty well.


And this one (while still one-hour) is a little more anatomically correct and has better blending. However, the shadows aren't as deep as I would like them to be—consequentially, this image looks flatter than the one above.

[whenrabbitsattack2.0]

thanks for all the crits guys, I really appreciate it

the anatomy on this is entirely crap, but I wasn't focusing on it. i wan't to try the colour palette seefy suggested.
is this what you were talking about, seef?

[Celestial-Fox]

Yeah, that looks much better already! Now you can work on shading with a broader range of values. The cool shadows need to be fairly dark to be believable. Otherwise, the skin tends to look flat and a bit like putty. I can already see a big improvement from last time, so you'll probably get the hang of it in no time!