apples13-not sure about colors

**apples13** · 02-26-2012, 03:08 PM

Originally Posted by Rubisko

Hi,

I took a look at the piece with the sitting girl, and I noticed a few things I hope you'll be happy to see.

I d-loaded your pic and marked up a few things to make the crit easier to follow, I hope you don't mind.

I'll explain my notations as I go;

i. The thing is the pose really, and actually this is a hard one. There is really two interpretations of a pose like this, the first one is that she is relaxing, sitting on her heels. The second one is that she's crouching, which is a more dynamic and unbalanced pose. Her right leg, the marked one, is crouching, but her left leg is relaxing. For the rest of this crit I'm going to assume that she is supposed to be relaxing on her heels.

ii. This is not about the arm as much as it is about the space between her leg, torso and arm. If she is supposed to be resting her elbow on the leg it is soon about to slip of and she'll fall backwards and to her left. To avoid this the line of balance for her head+torso and arm should be aligned with the line of balance for the whole body. I realize now that I didn't sketch the line, but you should still be able to see what I mean by looking at the triangles I drew under her arm in B.

iii. The shoulders and breasts are foreshortened a bit strangely. Look at the red lines in B. The red vertical line to her left is longer than the one on her right. I know you know why this is wrong, but stuff like this always happens when you work on something hours on end. Do you flip the canvas as you work? It helps a lot, I do it like every ten minutes when I paint and draw digitally.

iv. What is she grabbing with her hand?

v. Awesome renderin', but it detracts from her face. Still, it's awesome, just awesome...

Alright, so there's three (four) more things I haven't covered yet. The B part of the img I use there's kind of a redline going on, only that it's green. I only used it to pinpoint the errors I knew was in the pose, But you don't need to use it, unless you want to.

Second, why didn't you paint the top of her hat? I know you can do it splendidly, I mean you drew everything else so well. There's no excuse for not drawing the whole thing when you draw digitally, there's not like there's a limit to the space on the canvas right

Third, you render very well, but the overall shadowing is a bit, forgive me, random. Unless you really know what you are doing, use only one lightsource, especially when it comes to cartoons, manga, anime and so on (because the forms are so simplistic it's hard to get a 3d effect with more than one source)

And the fourth: I hope you didn't find the crit to harsh. The crit is extensive because I feel like you have the potential to get what I tried to say and use it to improve, so I'll hope this will be useful to you

woah thats a lot. There are several things I agree with you and there are several things I believe is inaccurate in your critique. I agree that my shadowing is a bit random, that is something I am still working on. The position of the leg however is inaccurate but how you explained changes the pose too much. you can relax your leg with out putting your knee on the ground. The accessory is a part of the character(fan art) as well the face should be colored better but that is another thing with better shadowing. She is grabbing her knee with her hand. In any case Thanks for the crit I am not drawing like this for a long time and will be focusing on cell shading and soft cell shading for for the most part. This type of color takes way too long.

**Rubisko** · 02-26-2012, 05:58 PM

Please don't go back to cell shading; you're way to good at this technique already, and I'm certain that a more realistic approach on coloring lineart will help you develop faster as an artist, so long as you mind the lightsource of c :P

Oh, and you're right about the kneeling pose! I didn't believe it at first, because it felt so unnatural when I tried to do it, but I discussed it with a friend and he disagreed. He pointed out that I most probably felt unnatural in any other kneeling pose than resting-on-the-knee because of my military training, where stability is key, and we tried out a few different ways to kneel. So I've learned a lot today, thank you

We both agreed however, that the other leg needs to come down and form a slightly less than orthogonal angle, less than 90 degrees that is.

Complementary to this are a few minor anatomical/proportional errors. I can make a sketch and point them out to you if you like, but it will take an hour or so to do it, so I'll only do it if you'd like me to

Also, it WON'T be the standard back to basic this-is-the-proportions-of-the-human-body kinda crit, but it will focus on how you can use basic geometry to calculate the right proportions in almost any pose. I saw your latest sketch, so I know you have no problems with proportions in a more regular pose

Anyway, keep up the good work!

**apples13** · 02-26-2012, 07:48 PM

Originally Posted by Rubisko

Please don't go back to cell shading; you're way to good at this technique already, and I'm certain that a more realistic approach on coloring lineart will help you develop faster as an artist, so long as you mind the lightsource of c :P

Oh, and you're right about the kneeling pose! I didn't believe it at first, because it felt so unnatural when I tried to do it, but I discussed it with a friend and he disagreed. He pointed out that I most probably felt unnatural in any other kneeling pose than resting-on-the-knee because of my military training, where stability is key, and we tried out a few different ways to kneel. So I've learned a lot today, thank you

We both agreed however, that the other leg needs to come down and form a slightly less than orthogonal angle, less than 90 degrees that is.

Complementary to this are a few minor anatomical/proportional errors. I can make a sketch and point them out to you if you like, but it will take an hour or so to do it, so I'll only do it if you'd like me to

Also, it WON'T be the standard back to basic this-is-the-proportions-of-the-human-body kinda crit, but it will focus on how you can use basic geometry to calculate the right proportions in almost any pose. I saw your latest sketch, so I know you have no problems with proportions in a more regular pose

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Thanks for the input. I understand what you mean. I actually realized this halfway during the drawing but fixing it at that time would have taken too long so I will just keep in mind next time. I think my new drawing is looking better so we will have to see how that ends up. I am still an amateur at 3d visualization and I want to get better, but it is not easy so I am just documenting the little things I learned over the years to trick my mind into understanding it better. good luck to you too on work you are doing.

**Blue_Dragon** · 02-27-2012, 01:09 AM

Originally Posted by apples13

SPOILER! :

working on something you might have seen in the gb

You've done an excellent job with her face, and I really like the stance. Her hair is also very pretty :3

A couple things I'm noticing: with the black lines, her thumb looks a little too thick--I know it's not fully inked yet, but that's the impression I get from the curve on her palm. Also, her right foot (the one in back) I think is turned out a bit too far. I don't think she could stand balanced that way. I think her legs *maybe* need to be a little farther apart, but I'm not certain on that. I'm also not sure, but I think her cap should be pulled up a little more on her head-it looks like it could slide off the back.

I love that style of hat, though :3 And the clothing choice helps to give your character personality. She's very well done :3

Hope this helps a bit! Looking nice

**apples13** · 02-27-2012, 01:38 AM

Originally Posted by Blue_Dragon

You've done an excellent job with her face, and I really like the stance. Her hair is also very pretty :3

A couple things I'm noticing: with the black lines, her thumb looks a little too thick--I know it's not fully inked yet, but that's the impression I get from the curve on her palm. Also, her right foot (the one in back) I think is turned out a bit too far. I don't think she could stand balanced that way. I think her legs *maybe* need to be a little farther apart, but I'm not certain on that. I'm also not sure, but I think her cap should be pulled up a little more on her head-it looks like it could slide off the back.

I love that style of hat, though :3 And the clothing choice helps to give your character personality. She's very well done :3

Hope this helps a bit! Looking nice

Thanks I will keep those in mind. I have actually been changing quite a few things since I last posted it they should look better when I am done with the lineart.

**apples13** · 03-14-2012, 10:10 PM

update on the design

**CypressDahlia** · 03-14-2012, 10:33 PM

The legs you drew were missing some natural contours, so I added those, especially in the knee area. Considering how detailed the contours of the hands and wrist are, it would look visually unbalanced to have super stylized legs.

I also tilted the front foot forward, since you said you wanted her to be balanced on the ball of her foot. Oh, and the heel on the back foot was too far out, so I brought it in.