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Good work guys! :D

I thought I'd post this here, hope no one minds. I was talking to a friend, she wants to get into concept and character design and I was explaining a few things to her that I've learned over the year. My reservoir of knowledge isn't very deep, I'll be the first to admit I'm still a student and always will be. But I do want/like to share what little I know.

And I noticed she, and so many other artist, don't seem to pay much attention to 'hands'. I mean, some artist even render them well, correctly, etc. But I don't think they give the hands enough credit, I see this a lot in comics especially. They're just these object son the ends of the arms that that characters can equip weapons in.

But the hands are so important to a character, they tell so much.

Scars and calluses tell you what?
Smooth unblemished palms tell you what?
Bent fingers from long past broken bones, delicate touches convey a lot. The hands are as important to a character as the face is in my opinion.

I myself am even guilty of quickly scratching them down, just to get them out of the way. But no, if you're conveying character, emotion, traits, you're trying to tell a story in an image, and that image is of a character. You give his hands as much care and attention as any other part of his body. Any tribal maul, any space helmet, any utility belt and clever mask. His hands show his rage, his elegance, his profesionalism, his barbarism.

Just something I thought I'd share since I was on the topic. Something I gotta remind myself of as well.

I'll try to dig up a few examples. The art is not by me.

At 12/2/10 06:17 PM, J-qb wrote:

At 12/2/10 06:12 PM, CloudEater wrote: hey! there's nothing wrong with paint. Many famous artists have used it over the years, here are some examples: Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso

Van Gogh totally used Photoshop.... sucker; get your facts straightened before you start throwing them around

Hahaha =P

At 12/2/10 05:43 PM, arden18 wrote: Hey guys i was wondering if you guys could Crit this

its my first work and im new to art so don't expect anything amazing.

also if you think it's good you can go recommend it Here:
Earth

then if you want check out my other art

P.S the reason why it's so bad quality is because it's made with paint.

Dude, yeah, um, first off, don't use paint. Like, paint is fun to go back to to prove what you can do with it, like, kinda an online joke. Like those dudes that build epic towers and dragons and shit out of sand, and I'm still doing the castle-shaped pail thing 20 yards away with tears in my eyes.

Get a tablet. It costs many earth dollars, but an older used one is way cheaper, and get photoshop, or painter, or gimp, or anything. Then paint 365.2 paintings. That is my advice to you. Good luck.

I think that means you don't like it haha, but whatever. Yeah I still wanna improve on it. In fact, I've decided to become more antisocial so I can work on art more haha, cause I'm tired of not improving so much.. i shall work on this when i can.

I didn't want/try to imply I didn't like it. I'm sorry it sounded that way, I was trying to help. Good luck, keep painting/drawing. ^_^

At 11/28/10 06:42 PM, Ocelotlikespie wrote: Hey, I know I haven't been in this thread for ages, but I still want to thank you for the advices you gave me. I forgot all about this thread until now. Again, thank you =D

You bet! I have no doubt it is easy to forget about, haha, I keep having to take massive breaks in the middle of it, and it gets backed up. Stay cool. :D

At 11/29/10 02:14 AM, joe9320 wrote: Can you critique this please? I wanted to improve it.

It certainly looks like you're going for an anime/crisp style. When I first started I was very fixated on crisp work as well, I just love how it looks when everything is so clear and focused. My first suggestion is to of course draw as much as you can from observation. I don't JUST mean life, but copy your favorite artists too. Now don't copy them and pass them off as your own, copy them in a sketchbook, fill the pages, and pick an artist, and study his/her work HARD. Find out WHAT it is about their work you like and what makes it stand out to you. Don't try to steal from them, try to learn form them. Also, draw some life, it helps.

When drawing women, there are a few universal rules you have to always remember. Leave some space between their necks and their breasts, very common mistake to put them too high/perky. The shoulder are almost always the same width, or less narrow than the hips. Wide shoulders suggest 'male' in all cases. Even in real life if a woman has wider shoulders than her hips it seems a little 'off'. Not saying it isn't impossible, but you know, it's fact that it is uncommon and less attractive to most men.

I say, just draw a lot, there are some glaring flaws, but I can tell you worked hard on it, and that counts for a lot. If you work this hard on a picture everyday, 300 a year, I'll be asking your advice in no time. I say, don't change what you're doing, just do more of it. If you're not already of course, and think about what you're drawing as much as possible, don't let it become mechanical, train your mind as well as your arm and hand. And try to draw loose, and then tighten up, it looks like you were working tight the entire time on this. Dunno if that is true, but it looks that way. Big details first, little details later.

At 11/28/10 12:36 PM, Sam1234299 wrote: Hank from Madness Combat 9. I hope you all like it. :D

Pistol turned out really good, didja use a ref? It's awesome regardless, a lot of people struggle with guns. I think the shape of his head, especially in the back, could use a little bit more filling out, making it more round. Although it isn't world ending with a cartoon character, especially if it is consistent. I'm having a little trouble reading his right, our left, arm, the one with claws I think? I would try putting a bolder outline around it, making it stand out a little bit better against his jacket and gear.

Also, if that is a horizon behind him, a general rule is to keep it around head level, it just reads better and often when we look at people, or photos are taken, that is where the horizon line is. It isn't law, but it's a good rule unless you're specifically going for a strange or unique angle.

In comics they sometimes call it 'hanging the character by their eyes' because when in a hurry, you just put the horizon level with their eyes.

At 11/28/10 02:01 AM, San7a wrote: I actually just finished screen printing these guys individually. I think they still need something though.

Perhaps you could give me some advice to make them stronger?

Very stylized, so much that they're very much outside of my zone for comfort. They seem almost tribal, or maybe like some kind of cave drawings. But the color choices suggest they're more modern, like the neon lights on some dark street in a breathing city. Kinda makes me think of the punk/tribal nature of some of these old comics Tank Girl.

It's a pretty bold piece, I feel like the geometric nature is broken in a few places, not sure if that was intentional or not. Mostly in some of the character's legs. I'm really stretching for advice here, haha. Also, the character have some symbol on their foreheads? Glowing eyes, man, this is trippy.

Honestly, I think they're pretty storng on their own for this kind of stylized work, easy to to read at a glance, bright colors creating strong shapes.

Great new stuff captain, digging that weird fish a lot too. :D

last one for the day

sketches

more stuff

blurble

moar

sketches

Art, will probably get shrunken so much you can't even tlel what it is though :D

Looking mighty sharp there, captain underpants.

At 11/28/10 01:15 AM, RyderOmega wrote: How about my work? It was a piece I had worked on for a while. I had gotten the idea for this one after watching "the Book of Eli" for about the 20th time. Here's my art page for it.

I should have changed the lighting on the machete.

Hey, I loved that movie too. But anything post apoc has my heart.

This makes me think a lot about my early work, color choices, subject, the way you shaded, everything. The background is actually framed really well and in a visually pleasing, but non distracting way. I dunno how much thought you put into the black bored and empty space, but it works well imho.

The thing that hits me the hardest as needing work is the shading, or lack of it. I think the absolute best thing you can do in photoshop, in order to become a better artist, is to stop using photoshop. Now I don't mean stop using the program, I mean, stop using their tools. Paint your next ten pictures only using a hard edged brush, you will see huge improvements I promise you. Don't use gradient tools, don't don't don't use the airbrush. Don't use a filter.

I traced your picture, and then added hard shadows, all using the brushtool with a hard-edged circle shape. I know it isn't perfect but I'm just trying to illustrate a point, the shadows seem more real, more natural, and most importantly, like the artist knew where he/she wanted the shadows to be. Airbrushing almost feels.. well 'vague' Like you're not sure where you want the shadows to be.

No, obviously all tools have a use, but I think their uses are super limited. I use the airbrush or gradient tool, once or twice a month for very specific reasons. Most professionals I know would agree with me on this.

I can't express enough how much I want you to continue working. But make yourself do all the hardwork you can in every aspect of the painting. It will pay off, it is something I wish I knew 10 years ago.

-- I overlayed my shadow'd image ontop of yours to give you an idea, I think it made it a little stronger, experiment some, good luck. ^_^

At 11/23/10 05:28 PM, Spaghetti14 wrote: Alright here's one I'm working on.
I don't know what to do,what detail to put in it, is it even worth that? I like it personally but i have no idea what to make of it, where to go or anything.. The shadow isnt permanent or anything, I'm willing to put in a background but i just have no ideas right now..

This is a pretty interesting/strange piece. It's pretty heavily stylized and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. To me it kinda looks like some sort of alien robot. I think, if you're going for even a semi realistic dipictation of something, you need to never use simple cast shadows on flat surfaces. It'll destroy any chance of the brain taking it seriously. For just, 'art' or design if can work of course. I'm not sure what your ultimate goal was for this piece.

They 'eyes' are pretty trippy too, I suggest you just keep drawing, draw as much as you can and do so knowing what your goal is. This looks very much like exploration art, and it's impossible for anyone to crit this kind of art in my opinion. I have opinions, but they're not really good crits. I say keep doing it and see what comes of it. Thanks, hope it helps some, and more importantly encourages you to do more work!

Thanks guys.

More sketches, nothing big. Really want to get more comfortable drawing right into photoshop, and not needing paper.

At 11/23/10 12:10 AM, DukenukemALT wrote: Can you crit this I have no idea how to do human anatomy so I use pose maniacs

Well, it's hard without seeing the figures you drew from. They look pretty good, soem distortion, but everyone does a little of that. I think you need to concentrate on the sillouette of the figure first, at least that is what I was taught to do, the second two links below show how to do this.

The most important thing here isn't so much that you need a crit on each work, is that you need to do as many of these as you can. I do roughly 10 figure drawings every morning, after breakfast, before work. Do so many of these that they don't even seem hard anymore, before you know it, you won't need refs. I included some links to some good articles and advice, Vilpuu is my goto guy for figure drawing, look him up. He even has some good videos. The second links are some scans I got out of a book from my shelf, hope it helps.

Vilpuu

Figure 1
Figure 2

At 11/22/10 03:01 AM, KayaKure wrote: Hi there! It's awesome you spend your time to critic some "noobs" art *thumbs up*

Well.. Here is my newest drawing! It's a self portrait - the smudge it's my style. It could be great if you want to spend a few seconds to look at it, and criticize it! :)

(Sorry for the bad English, hope you could understand me :))

Hey, don't worry about your english! Looks like it is probably better than mine. so when I first look at this, I think 'photo' for sure. And I don't mean reffed, but painted over. Painted on top of. That isn't terrible, just be honest. A lot of people freak about this stuff, I don't. You can learn a lot from following forms. I believe that we humans are essentially meat machines, and can learn just about anyhting through repitition, even though that is a boring way to learn. When I first started drawing back around 1999 to 2000, I saw some serious weaknesses in my art, wrists, collar bones, knees... hell, I'm still not too good at them. But sometihng I did, and don't tell anyone, but what I did was... >_> I traced as many photos and comics as I could, of those specifics parts of the body. I traced and copied and everything you're not supposed to do. But I paid attention to what I was doing, and I think it helped. Some.

I didn't want to be too presumptious, so I dug into your jpg file a little and found this info.

Camera Make:Canon
Model:Canon EOS 450D
Shutter Speed:1/125 second
Aperture:F/4.0
Focal Length:27 mm
ISO Speed:100
Sensor Size:14mm
Date Taken:Nov 3, 2010, 5:56:29 PM
Editing Software:Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows

This info wouldn't be there if this wasn't painted over a photo. Again though, not a big deal. I did this same stuff when I started, and if your profile information is correct I was about the same age that you are.

Nothing beats studying by eye though, don't let me mislead you. You train your eyes, your hands, and your mind to all work together. It's important to have to look at one thing, then back to your own work. It's important to make strokes without even looking at your canvas. That empty void between your subject and your paper, you need to travel that void before you can truely transfer the information in a convincing and natural feeling way.

I want to encourage you to keep painting, keeping studying, using yourself and others as a model is great! I still use myself for difficult poses, or take photos of my own hands for strange angles, and such. Just keep painting, and don't be afraid to explore. And also, do not worry about a style. Once you paint with all your heart and energy, and you're no longer concerned with 'style'. That is when you'll begin to develope a style of your own.

Keep working, share more, etc. Thanks, hope this helps.

At 11/21/10 02:44 AM, realmZeH wrote: Hey could you please crit mine as well? details- its all in photoshop, no tablet and around 150 layers

So you did this with a mouse? That's pretty fantastic if so. I can't crit a whole lot, a lot of it is really strong. I feel like the aircraft on the right should be faded some, they look like they should be further away. The ground structures look pretty sharp, but they're super dark. It makes the planet look like it has really weird light conditions, or something, usually shadows arn't black unless you're in total darkness, then everything is black. I imagine some more technical artist such as feng zhu or yoitisi could give better advice, you might look them up for inspiration if you havn't already. I know for a fact I could not do this with a mouse, I'll just flat say that. Clouds look nice, sky looks cool, and for 'concept art' this is perfect, for illustration I think it could use more work, primarily in your focal points and getting rid of that black, adding some color to draw the viewer's attention. Good work, thanks for sharring it with me. ^_^

At 11/20/10 10:43 PM, Luxembourg wrote: I hope you don't get bogged down this time around.
I think this is one of the best pencil drawings I've done yet. It didn't scan perfectly, but I'd still like an honest opinion and critique.

Well, it looks good. Did you do it from a photo or from life? Over the years I've pretty much relied on line (which is bad in some cases) for all of my art, and this kind of pencil, shades, art school kinda stuff isn't my strongest point. Although I did do plenty when I was in art school, of course. It's certainly a healthy exercise. At a glance a few spots look strong than others, the upper part, the fingerboard and the scroll, the pegs too, they seem to be less detailed, less refined. I can't tell if it is just the scan or the actual drawing, but they seem weak when compared to the bridge/belly/tailpiece. The parts closer to us. This foreshortened angle isn't easy either, so kudos on tackling it. I'd say, sharped it up, try to make more confident strokes on the next one, and darken some of the areas closer to the viewer, adding a sense of depth. Use heavier lines, darker strokes. You might have actually have done that and it just didn't scan, it looks like there is some blurring on the bottom half of the image. Hope this helps, it's a good drawing, reminds me I need to do way more still-life work.

MajesticBob, I also forgot to mention some rim lighting always helps with background explosion art. This is a pretty weak example I quickly added to your image. In reality we probably wouldn't even be able to see the charatcer, they'd just be a dark shape, but movies and cartoons rarely do that. Rim lighting gives a similar effect, like so.

MajesticBob: Hey, good work! I think my first suggestion for you, as it is for most people, is to keep painting. I think once you learn how to use a lot of the tools in photoshop better you'll see huge improvments.

I don't know for sure if my gamma settings are off or something, but this seems very dark. Maybe on future images don't use so much black, try using a dark blue for your shadows. In reality, shadows aren't black anyway, they're actually influenced by the atmosphere, and ours on earth is blue.

And don't worry about smudging, or using an airbrush. Try using hard edged brushes in the future, it'll feel horrible at first, but once you get comfortable with them you'll love them I promise. Airbrushes and soft brushes almost always look fake and photoshopy. Hope that helps some. Good work, do more. ^_^

morning warmup stuff

At 11/20/10 10:11 PM, Luxembourg wrote: Are you offering critique again or are you just finishing up with the pieces that were already here, for the sake of thoroughness?

Yeah, I'll do more, thanks for being polite and asking though, haha. Everyone said I'd get swamped and I did. ^_^ Go ahead and post one if you got it. ^_^

At 7/22/10 10:17 PM, tomocles wrote: Here is one of two pieces i was hoping to have critiqued. It is a concept design for a main villain in a story im drawing for. Im mainly looking for advice on making him unique, while remaining menacing and powerful. ( I realize the terrible clarity, but i cant scan anything right now so im using a camera)

This makes me think so much of my own work, the rough lines, the theme, etc. Very cool. Have you drawn the character any since posted this?

At 7/22/10 10:23 PM, tomocles wrote: Here is my next up for critique...these are tiki masks I am making for a game, but I was hoping you would have some advice to add to their appeal?

These look really solid, read easy even at a distance. The elemental feel is converyed well, good work. ^_^

At 7/25/10 03:24 AM, RaptorFarmer wrote: Here's my last digital pic. The point was to make it strangely cute by mixing elements of popular cartoons that convey cuteness with a muscly body and boobies. How could I make this cuter without sacrificing it's weirdness?

That's a tought one, I mean, it kind of is cute, her face is, but the body is jarring when combined with it. Color choices seem to be working pretty well though, I say just draw a bunch more, do ten of these, you're bound to get it right. Quality sometimes comes with quantity, lord, sorry it took me so long to respond, I'm going to try to get cought up. If you have anymore questions let me know.

At 8/2/10 05:55 AM, Musical-Memoirs wrote:

At 7/25/10 03:27 PM, Hyptosis wrote:

thanks a lot!!!

You bet, sorry it took me so long to reply. I've been busy, etc etc *excuses* Just make sure you keep on drawing and try to stay inspired.

At 7/25/10 04:32 PM, fire11lite wrote: crit it
http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/fire1 1lite/tv-hitman

That looks like a bunch of copy pasted stuff, not cool champ.

At 7/25/10 03:56 AM, PICOSANGELALEX wrote: h-hello im new to the artist portal here on newgroundas..i draw alot and always trying to do something new...

i-i have a DA account myu if you would like to see it id link it to u..

a-anyway heres a picture ive recently done

i used the sai program, and correl studio sketch pad.

most of it is free hand while other was looking at a base and drawing it from sight.

w-well i hope u like it enough to critique it im trying to get noticed a bit here...

t-thank u for ur time..

btw i mostly draw animorphic characters and im just starting to draw anime humans again...

im actually working on drawin a fan art piece of larry the lil freakin knight.

wish me luck

I don't want to be too presumptious, but parts of this look traced. I might be wrong, if I am, sorry. But yeah, getting that vibe. Regardless, just keep drawing, and study some art that has good color theory. Artist's like Jason Chan, you can google him, they reall yknow how to push color, and it will help a lot. Your colors seem jarring. Do more line art, study color pallettes, find what makes them work. Good luck. ^^