Crits needed

[Gautham]

Hello good people...



These are some of the characters i have created for my own personal project. I do know that there is little or no action or movement in these. I did them to clarify the design in my mind more than to establish a scene. I do plan on doing scenes but not now. I would love to get some crits on these... Anatomy issues, foreshortening, color, lighting??? All of them and more...Please help...


Thank you and have a great day.

[Stoat]

Likes his ladies with a bit of meat on their bones; I like that in an illustrator.

Hands and feet (but I'm sure you knew that). These are well-finished and a bit ambitious. Just...do a lot more of this, I guess.

[Gautham]

Likes his ladies with a bit of meat on their bones; I like that in an illustrator.

Hands and feet (but I'm sure you knew that). These are well-finished and a bit ambitious. Just...do a lot more of this, I guess.

Haha... Thank you... That made my day... As for the hands and the feet..yeah...i kinda forgot to finish them...Bizarree... i kinda was putting that out for last but forgot i guess... i'll work on that.. Is there anything else i could do perhaps..design wise... Does it look interesting or is it like just people staring somewhere???

[Gautham]

Anyone? Please....

[smuli]

All of them seem to have a pose and environment that fits the design of the characters, and the outfits on the two last ones especially look really good!

The backgrounds look good for portrait backgrounds but on the characters, you seem to have used the same type of clean rendering in every part. Maybe leaving the brushwork a bit more loose on parts you don't want the viewer to focus on, soft edges on some of the shadows and bits of texture on points of interest could've been used to lead the eye. I really recommend drawing lots and lots of hands from reference, they're your weakest point at the moment.

All in all though, really good looking portraits!

[Spivak000]

Gautham,

I did 2 small changes to the first 2 that I thought would make them a little better. For the creepy dude, I angled his front foot slightly outwards. And for the second, I thought she could use a bit of softening around the breasts, left leg, and left arm. Just a tad. What do you think?

[Gautham]

Gautham,

I did 2 small changes to the first 2 that I thought would make them a little better. For the creepy dude, I angled his front foot slightly outwards. And for the second, I thought she could use a bit of softening around the breasts, left leg, and left arm. Just a tad. What do you think?

Hi Jerry

Thank you for taking the time to edit the painting..i really do appreciate it.. I was just checking out the before and after effects...First, the woman. I see that by darkening the shadows all around, the forms are being defined more clearly..especially the left leg and the hand... I was just thinking about softening the edges on the left leg a bit after reading samuli's crits. As for her breasts i see that you have applied a lighter shade on the bottom part of her left breast. Will that area receive that much light? Also do you think i should show her feet instead of putting it in water? At least show the feet through the water...Or will that just make the piece very busy? too many details....

As for the creepy dude, the leg looks much better now...actually now looking at my painting, i do see that his feet was looking pretty uncomfortable..also i see you have upped the contrast a lot...do you feel like i should darken the shadows more in my image? I do have a problem with letting go in my paintings...i guess i am actually afraid of just losing a part of my image even if its for the betterment of the overall piece...


Looking forward to your feedback...

Have a great day
Gautham

[Spivak000]

Gautham,

I'm terribly sorry, but the images I posted don't quite reflect the changes I made. I may have saved them incorrectly and then didn't check the post afterwards.

So actually, on the woman, I was thinking that the shadows could be softened a bit all around. Yes like Samuli's crit. Just to add a bit more femininity to her. Check out some WILLIAM BOUGUEREAU paintings on the web (there are lots of them) to get a sense of really good shadow softening on the female form. The upped contrast on the creepy dude is a mistake. Sorry for that. He has good values to my eyes the way you had it, its just that front foot I was worried about. Usually feet angle slightly outwards from the kneecap, unless they are bent sideways at the ankle.

Hi Jerry

Thank you for taking the time to edit the painting..i really do appreciate it.. I was just checking out the before and after effects...First, the woman. I see that by darkening the shadows all around, the forms are being defined more clearly..especially the left leg and the hand... I was just thinking about softening the edges on the left leg a bit after reading samuli's crits. As for her breasts i see that you have applied a lighter shade on the bottom part of her left breast. Will that area receive that much light? Also do you think i should show her feet instead of putting it in water? At least show the feet through the water...Or will that just make the piece very busy? too many details....

As for the creepy dude, the leg looks much better now...actually now looking at my painting, i do see that his feet was looking pretty uncomfortable..also i see you have upped the contrast a lot...do you feel like i should darken the shadows more in my image? I do have a problem with letting go in my paintings...i guess i am actually afraid of just losing a part of my image even if its for the betterment of the overall piece...


Looking forward to your feedback...

Have a great day
Gautham

[Gautham]

Ah.... cool...its fine... and i agree...Bougereau would be perfect actually... i am working on the woman as i type this.. will upload the updated one soon. thank you again...

[Gautham]

All of them seem to have a pose and environment that fits the design of the characters, and the outfits on the two last ones especially look really good!

The backgrounds look good for portrait backgrounds but on the characters, you seem to have used the same type of clean rendering in every part. Maybe leaving the brushwork a bit more loose on parts you don't want the viewer to focus on, soft edges on some of the shadows and bits of texture on points of interest could've been used to lead the eye. I really recommend drawing lots and lots of hands from reference, they're your weakest point at the moment.

All in all though, really good looking portraits!

Hi Smuli


Thank you for the feedback...

I do see what you're saying... It is too clean all around... I guess i must have really went around a lot more with the hard brush over the soft brushwork done initially....thank you..i really kind of missed that...As for the hands..yeah....they are like in an extremely pitiful state..I do have to work a lot on anatomy...I'll do some studies for hands and feet...Although i feel like i could have actually pushed the design for the characters a bit more...small stuff like the hair bands, bangles etc...just to make the characters more iconic..at least that's what i am hoping for...but again thanks for your inputs..i'll work on the hands and feet right away..

[PeteJ]

One thing I would change, is that crab arm, it just doesn't seem to fit.

[DonovanValdes]

Hi Gautham.

It seems you've already received some input from people trying to help, but I have a few suggestions that deal more with fundamentals and approach. For all the pieces here, you should decide on a dominant light source and stick with it. Consistent lighting is very important when creating a believable stage, and right now it's difficult to tell where you're lighting is coming from.

Some things I see:
- In your skeleton trio piece, take the left-most skeleton for example. Should light be hitting both sides of his ankle-rings? Why isn't that same light hitting his foot, or the ground? His shield is clearly receiving light from above (where the highlight is brightest) but his weapon arm/elbow and axe handle suggest a light from below. You can find similar examples in the other pieces.

- In the dressed-woman shot, her head casts a clear and distinct shadow across her chest and shoulder, but her nose does not cast anything on her face. Same for the right arm on the hip, or the draped dress over the leg. There is a highlight along the bottom of her thigh, just above her knee, where it should probably be in shadow.

- The many-armed demon...are those arms duplicated and flipped? The lighting information on them is inconsistent from his right arms to his left...the hands suggest light coming from both directions. The skulls at his belt are receiving abundant light from 3 sides, but the adjacent skirt-cloth is under deep shadow.

In a nutshell, don't be afraid to keep some details in shadow. You don't have to highlight everything you paint. The imagination can fill in the blanks. Keep true to the light source when you paint, and you'll find more success.

Hope this isn't too much in one shot. Good luck!

[Gautham]

Hi Gautham.

It seems you've already received some input from people trying to help, but I have a few suggestions that deal more with fundamentals and approach. For all the pieces here, you should decide on a dominant light source and stick with it. Consistent lighting is very important when creating a believable stage, and right now it's difficult to tell where you're lighting is coming from.

Some things I see:
- In your skeleton trio piece, take the left-most skeleton for example. Should light be hitting both sides of his ankle-rings? Why isn't that same light hitting his foot, or the ground? His shield is clearly receiving light from above (where the highlight is brightest) but his weapon arm/elbow and axe handle suggest a light from below. You can find similar examples in the other pieces.

- In the dressed-woman shot, her head casts a clear and distinct shadow across her chest and shoulder, but her nose does not cast anything on her face. Same for the right arm on the hip, or the draped dress over the leg. There is a highlight along the bottom of her thigh, just above her knee, where it should probably be in shadow.

- The many-armed demon...are those arms duplicated and flipped? The lighting information on them is inconsistent from his right arms to his left...the hands suggest light coming from both directions. The skulls at his belt are receiving abundant light from 3 sides, but the adjacent skirt-cloth is under deep shadow.

In a nutshell, don't be afraid to keep some details in shadow. You don't have to highlight everything you paint. The imagination can fill in the blanks. Keep true to the light source when you paint, and you'll find more success.

Hope this isn't too much in one shot. Good luck!

Wow..Thank you so much...I really cant thank you enough. Why i am so desperate about getting crits is that most of the time even though i may know certain things to be obvious mistakes, i kinda forget about them when making the artworks.. Receiving outside perspective really nails them down. Like when i look at other's works for critiquing, i see and spot mistakes but when it comes to my work, i'm like blind. I will definitely keep my eye on the above mentioned points...

[giby]

I agree to every crtique given here are my 2 cents:
1. When designing chracters ...they must read well value wise i know ur good with colour but it is wiser to learn values 1st
2. always try out thumbnails to get design ideas ( i know its a little difficult to do thumbnails always :p) and take time to study composition ... here i hav a done a paint over resizing the characters and fadin out unecessary details .. i am guessing the middle one is thier leader there by giving more importance to him ... hope this helps .....and also avoid repeating elements lik open mouth in both skeletons

[Gautham]

I agree to every crtique given here are my 2 cents:
1. When designing chracters ...they must read well value wise i know ur good with colour but it is wiser to learn values 1st
2. always try out thumbnails to get design ideas ( i know its a little difficult to do thumbnails always :p) and take time to study composition ... here i hav a done a paint over resizing the characters and fadin out unecessary details .. i am guessing the middle one is thier leader there by giving more importance to him ... hope this helps .....and also avoid repeating elements lik open mouth in both skeletons

Hi Giby


Thanks for the feedback. Composition is something i am working at nowadays... I do suck at it. Thanks for the paint over too. I appreciate it. I did actually push the middle in front while i was working on it but decided not to do so in the end. I'm not exactly sure if i want one particular character to gain more attention. There is no leader concept here. but yes the most powerful one is the middle dude. So maybe you're right. I 'll try playing around with the composition. Also thanks for pointing out the open mouth. I never thought that would create a problem. But now actually i see it... I'll get to the issues right away...

Thanks again.

[Panelgutter]

I love the designs of Yama's disciples/followers.Great looking weapons too.You should do an individual series highlighting each of them

[Gautham]

They are coming...haha...Hopefully it will be epic.. I will be putting them by the lot...

[Raoul Duke]

my biggest crit for now is your characters are just standing around. it would almost be better if you ditched the backgrounds and focused on turnarounds.
Or you could have them in action and interacting with the environment.