simple abstractish drawing

[mostlymittens]

I haven't done anything digitally in a while so I thought I'd practice my light/shadows and whatnot.
To me it looks almost lacking in depth though I did add in some details here and there.
Feel free to let me know your first impression/technical criticisms.

[arenhaus]

It's a disembodied head floating in the middle of the blank page. You've detailed some bits but only marginally touched the others. The drawing isn't very solid, you are following the contours instead of the volume, you are not thinking of how facial features are tied together into the face, and your anatomy is very, very incorrect in many places - the worst of them being the neck.

Get a pencil, some paper, and sketch. Study composition, perspective, structural drawing, lighting, and anatomy.

[Morgan_R]

I like the hand on her right shoulder. Besides the anatomy issues, though, the front-on lighting isn't very flattering or interesting, and I think it's also contributing to your lack of depth.

[mostlymittens]

I like the hand on her right shoulder. Besides the anatomy issues, though, the front-on lighting isn't very flattering or interesting, and I think it's also contributing to your lack of depth.

the near front-on lighting isn't the most interesting of lighting choices but I don't think that should be a problem all on its own; I probably have to work on lights and shadows in general.
though I agree if I had more than one light source and it wasn't front-on, that might add more depth.
thanks for your input but I wish people would specify what parts of the anatomy need some work on when they critique something
because being told to just go out and sketch things and work on anatomy as arenhaus suggested isn't very helpful. just about anyone can say that.

[JeffX99]

the near front-on lighting isn't the most interesting of lighting choices but I don't think that should be a problem all on its own; I probably have to work on lights and shadows in general.
though I agree if I had more than one light source and it wasn't front-on, that might add more depth.
thanks for your input but I wish people would specify what parts of the anatomy need some work on when they critique something
because being told to just go out and sketch things and work on anatomy as arenhaus suggested isn't very helpful. just about anyone can say that.

Wow...I was going to say the same thing. The "parts of the anatomy" aren't the problem. Lack of understanding basic fundamentals is. But anyone can say that too.

[humboldt squid]

Painting on a white background is almost never a good idea, unless you're already pretty damn good at color and value. I realize that a lot of people are going off of yonder PS painting tutorial which has you paint on a white bg, but I honestly think that's really shitty advice. White backgrounds throw off your ability to guage color and value and fight with the foreground for visual dominance in a composition.

Also I don't see what's abstract about your painting, it seems pretty figurative to me.

[arenhaus]

thanks for your input but I wish people would specify what parts of the anatomy need some work on when they critique something
because being told to just go out and sketch things and work on anatomy as arenhaus suggested isn't very helpful. just about anyone can say that.

Your problems are not with "parts" of anatomy, your problems are systemic.

You aren't thinking in 3D, you aren't building the drawing, you ignore perspective and you don't know enough anatomy to build a cohesive head. So what you need to do is not "fix" this by tweaking a few parts; this picture cannot be fixed that way. What you need to do is go and develop your drawing method by practicing the fundamentals.

Which is what I had said.

[mostlymittens]

Painting on a white background is almost never a good idea, unless you're already pretty damn good at color and value. I realize that a lot of people are going off of yonder PS painting tutorial which has you paint on a white bg, but I honestly think that's really shitty advice. White backgrounds throw off your ability to guage color and value and fight with the foreground for visual dominance in a composition.

Also I don't see what's abstract about your painting, it seems pretty figurative to me.

that's some pretty good advice about the background color
and I used the word abstract pretty loosely I guess, I don't know.

[mostlymittens]

Your problems are not with "parts" of anatomy, your problems are systemic.

You aren't thinking in 3D, you aren't building the drawing, you ignore perspective and you don't know enough anatomy to build a cohesive head. So what you need to do is not "fix" this by tweaking a few parts; this picture cannot be fixed that way. What you need to do is go and develop your drawing method by practicing the fundamentals.

Which is what I had said.

the 3D bit of what you said seems interesting. I'll think about that next time I'm drawing.