What can be improved on this picture ?

[puinkey]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vpk39zaos3hwkif/whaaat.jpg

Composition wise ?

Tonal value wise ?

Colour wise ?

Anatomy wise ?

Lighting wise ?

And what did I do that I'm not supposed to do in the picture ?

Thank you very much in advance !

[dpaint]

composition you have tangents all over the place. no real center of interest.

No clear value pattern, everything is in the middle range which makes the tone and color muddy looking.

anatomy inconsistent

no clear sense of light no change in color attributes for shadows and lights

[puinkey]

composition you have tangents all over the place. no real center of interest.

No clear value pattern, everything is in the middle range which makes the tone and color muddy looking.

anatomy inconsistent

no clear sense of light no change in color attributes for shadows and lights

Thank you very much dpaint !

Never heard of composition and tangents before. I tried googling that up and I got some pretty useful input from the term itself .

Is it because his ear-hand got chipped off at the right ?
Or that his legs got chipped off at knee level ?
I'm quite new to this tangent/composition mumbo jumbo so more detailed explaination would be really helpful ! Also in a character , what is usually the center of interest ?

As for value pattern , not enough contrast ?
I tried asking a friend before and he says the picture does look muddy , murky dull and perhaps not eye catching ? But personally I like mute/earthly colours , so how would I find the solution to this aspect of the drawing ? Does increasing the intensity of the dark values help solve this issue ?

Inconsistent anatomy -yeeeaaah. I'll fix that. I'll just point out a few things that I think you were referring to.
-Fingers of both the ear-hands and the normal hands
-The right extension/arm of the ear-hand as compared to the left

Did I get all of them ?

I can see that when you say I have no clear sense of light , I'm really bad at visualizing it in a 3d form and play with the lights and etc . I'll get around to fixing that.
But I don't understand what do you mean by there's no change in colour attributes for shadows and lights . Would you kindly explain/enlighten me ?

Thank you very much in advance sir.
Haven't had a critique in a long while.
Feels good to see that I have a really really long and exciting journey ahead of me :]

[dpaint]

Thank you very much dpaint !

Never heard of composition and tangents before. I tried googling that up and I got some pretty useful input from the term itself .

Is it because his ear-hand got chipped off at the right ?
Or that his legs got chipped off at knee level ?
I'm quite new to this tangent/composition mumbo jumbo so more detailed explaination would be really helpful ! Also in a character , what is usually the center of interest ?

As for value pattern , not enough contrast ?
I tried asking a friend before and he says the picture does look muddy , murky dull and perhaps not eye catching ? But personally I like mute/earthly colours , so how would I find the solution to this aspect of the drawing ? Does increasing the intensity of the dark values help solve this issue ?

Inconsistent anatomy -yeeeaaah. I'll fix that. I'll just point out a few things that I think you were referring to.
-Fingers of both the ear-hands and the normal hands
-The right extension/arm of the ear-hand as compared to the left

Did I get all of them ?

I can see that when you say I have no clear sense of light , I'm really bad at visualizing it in a 3d form and play with the lights and etc . I'll get around to fixing that.
But I don't understand what do you mean by there's no change in colour attributes for shadows and lights . Would you kindly explain/enlighten me ?

Thank you very much in advance sir.
Haven't had a critique in a long while.
Feels good to see that I have a really really long and exciting journey ahead of me :]

Tangents refer to two shapes touching but not overlapping, this tends to flatten things in the viewers eye.

The muddy colors come from a weak shadow plan and ignoring color shifts for light and shadow. It has nothing to do with whether you use earth colors as opposed to bright colors. Warm lights cool shadows is a term to help describe what happens as an object transitions from light into shadow. The color of the object will usually be warmer in the lights and cooler in the shadows not just a darker version of itself. If you just darken it you are only changing value and ignoring the other two aspects of color hue and chroma. I recommend James Gurneys book Color and Light to help you.

Look at this Sargent painting of octopi. It is an earth toned painting but the light and form is very clear and the colors are not muddy at all. You don't need to just use brown to paint a picture of a brown object. It doesn't work that way.

[puinkey]

I'm still trying to figure things out .

Does that mean my drawings are too monochromatic ?

I've seen people fade their main subject into the background so I thought that would be a good idea to do so .
(might result in a monochromatic less contrasting picture eh ? )