Where am I?

[Aether Technician]

Hello internet! I've been drawing for about a year now, and although I know I've gotten better, It's difficult for me to determine where I'm at. How close do you think I am to being a professional and what do I need to work on the most?
Critiques on my work would be greatly appreciated.
Here's my sketchbook: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...ook&highlight=
These are some concepts I did for a game project: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...art&highlight=
and here's some meager 3D work: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...ook&highlight=

[Stoat]

I think there's a portfolio review area here. I've never visited it, though.

I'd say you haven't drawn with reference enough to draw without reference. Her hair is graphic and nice and shows a mature hand, but her facial features are not right. Draw from life more, if you can. Draw from photos more, if you can't draw from life. It's not a slam; some people go their whole careers and never work without reference.

I'd say you're getting close.

[Stoat]

Also, the effect I suspect you wanted from the fish probably would be better served with less white and more gold. Something I learned from 3D modeling that made me slap my forehead and go, "of course!" is that the highlight on metal is always the color of the metal, not white (unless it's white metal). In practice, you sometimes go all the way to white, sort of imitative of a camera lens being overwhelmed. But fish are kind of metallic looking, and the effect you're getting there is milky rather than glowy.

[Aether Technician]

Much obliged! I'll defiantly try to focus on portraits from reference in my sketchbook...and rendering different materials.
The fish were supposed to be picking up blue light from the right...but I can see now that it doesn't look quite right.

[Velocity Kendall]

her chin is jutting forward and her eyes look staring and wide; look at photos of women looking sort of dreamy, google image search will give you 10394348389483 hits so you should be able to find stuff that helps.

when doing glowing stuff, pretend white costs 1billion dollars a gram; one tiny bit of white in lots of colours looks more bright than loads of white everywhere. just my 2c there tho.

[Aether Technician]

Thank ya kindly.
I wasn't really going for "dreamy" but I didn't properly convey the expression I wanted either.
I tried to do a few faces from reference, and it's obvious that I have some pretty glaring issues right now: [link]
gotta keep practicing.
Thanks for the advice on white...I'll definitely try to keep that in mind.

[Velocity Kendall]

i tried a quick paint over, my anatomy sucks but see what you think

[Velocity Kendall]

i tried a quick paint over, my anatomy sucks but see what you think

[Kiera]

I'm a dick: This picture is pretty much going nowhere. Stop it and start again.

Here's why:
- it has a really weak, clicheed concept (type in goldfish and girl on Deviantart and see how many times similair pictures come up)
- there is neither composition nor good design anywhere
- the anatomy is messed up, both on the girl (face, shoulders) and the fish (they look like a mix of goldfish and worms to me - fishes don't do that up-and-down motion when they swim, they move their tails from left to right)
- the colors and lights are dull and randomn, her skintones are zombielike, the fishes are almost grey and the hair is just one massive shape without dimension and a really awkward turquoise gradient over it


Ok, what you can do:
So you have the idea of a girl and fishes.
Drop this picture and make a long research for similair pictures.
Put together a moodboard where you look for other artist's take on the subject matter or a mood you generally like.
Then look for elements that you could possibly need, like girls with long flowing hair, underwater photos, different sorts of fish, interesting underwater light...
Here, I did it for you:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mc...rzeo1_1280.jpg (you can get the motive by search for the character Delirium from the Sandman comics) Is there anything you like in this picture that you could use for your own?
http://loish.deviantart.com/art/bett...2F161223&qo=47 this artist does a lot of appealing hair... how does she do it? Take a look at her art:
http://loish.deviantart.com/art/d-ar...2F161223&qo=27
http://loish.deviantart.com/art/wrap...2F161223&qo=16
http://kxhara.deviantart.com/art/Exp...Pack-319939028 a stock foto of a girl in profile with all kinds of cool expressions. Did you know that Deviantart is packed with stock fotos and that you can easily get by typing "girl, profile, stock" in the search bar?
http://basistka.deviantart.com/art/Bewildered-134287943 the hair structure is really nice here, how about giving the hair a different color?
http://elenakalis.deviantart.com/art...lors-323101693 and http://elenakalis.deviantart.com/art...ride-301878608 underwater photos, how do the skintones look?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/psych0sis/3780924493/ how does hair underwater look like? What elements are there that make it look like she's in water?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nrgimages/3767720084/ I think the composition in this one is really nice, could you use this composition as a base?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31665359@N08/2960944812/ what kind of fish do you want, how do they look like?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darcymo...n/photostream/ I kinda like those fins, they look like fabric. Maybe the fins could look like they come directly out of the hair?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/draperstudios/4267669642/ Maybe you've stumble over elements that you really like and that you didn't thought of before. What about the fabric here? How do you like the reflection above her head?
See, twenty minutes of search gives you a lot to work with.

When you have a bunch of cool photos with inspiring ideas, feel free to do a couple of pencil studies of the references. YOu could draw the faces you chose as reference or
the hair that you like or the fish. That way you don't struggle in the drawing phase with details like fish fins or hair strands.
When you feel ready, do small thumbnail sketches - about 6-10 of them, really loose, small drawings. Try to have different takes on the subject, from the side, from above, frontal face, with visible body, the hair going elsewhere, big fishes, small fishes and so on.
And if you have that... then you can paint

These are steps that make your process a lot easier because you spread the work over several steps. With research for mood, you also have one extra step where you refine your vision.
With the reference pictures available, you can always see when something could look better. These pictures push you foreward.
If you notice that you lack insight into something, for example if you want to show an ear but the girl in your reference has hair over her ear, search for more references.

[Aether Technician]

Thanks for the overpaint, I see what you mean.

Thank you so much for being a dick! It's a lot more helpful than being a sheep that bahs compliments whenever a painting's sitting in front of them (everyone on DeviantArt). I definitely rush into painting with too little preparation...I'll try to work on that...and yah, this is getting scrapped along everything else I'm drawing now. At this point in the learning process, I feel like it's more helpful to start a new painting than to revise an old one.

again, thanks for the crits, everyone!

[Elwell]

As has been mentioned, your facial proportions and anatomy are a mess. Here's a redline.

[Aether Technician]

Thanks for the redline!
I'm working on drawing more faces from reference...I feel like I'm getting a little bit better, but I still have a lot of work to do. http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...9&d=1357836120

[Stoat]

Yes, just do a whole lot more of that, AT. Like, for the rest of your life

Nice redline, Elwell. I love to see a wonky drawing fixed. Something in the back of my brain goes, "aaaaahhhhh...that's better!"

[Aether Technician]

not sure if I should be posting sketchbook stuff here...but..well...I am.

I'm trying to work on rendering different materials. Hopefully more to come.

[Aether Technician]

so here's this. Crits are appreciated.