Dreamworld (critiques are welcome)

[Jikan]

OK, first post here, so...hi everybody, I guess. Anyway, I got here thanks to Tracy from lackadaisycats.com (my avatar is from a picture she did), who gave me this URL. OK, so I did this picture and I'm ready to CG it, but I need some critiques first. I have already fixed the cartoonish feet and the blocky knee, but any more ideas on how to make it better are welcome. The background is also not detailed on the sketch, because I want to make it mostly CG. I haven't used Photoshop to make some serious colouring in the last two years (most of my pictures aren't worth the time to get coloured, I don't tend to finish what I start), so I'd like to try to make this look nice.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/41286536/

The idea is...well, Anacharsis is some sort of dream creature. He lives trapped inside the best part of the dreamworld, the lucid dream where everything works according to your wishes. Anything you want is there, which can hardly be considered paradise, as there is no effort required for anything, and it makes satisfactions dim and reality- or unreality- pretty boring. The only means to enjoy himself he has is write poetry or paint pictures, because that depends not on his wishes but on his creativity, and even though he can create anything he wants around him, he cannot just be a genious by wishing it. Of course, how to get poetic inspiration in such a perfect world, where time does not exist and nothing perishes, is the complicated thing...


Also, this is how the CG looks so far:

http://img149.imageshack.us/my.php?i...procesoqn9.jpg

[dmitri]

The arms are quite different in lenght! The legs seem so as well.

Also getting some sort of reference for the chest might be good... sure, it's not a human being, but right now it's a bit hard to tell what's going on there. (Might be somewhat due to the rather pure profile view which makes it a bit hard to... read the form or something.)
It's your call, but the arms might look nicer with more "proper" shapes. Right now they seem a bit too straight.

The clothing could use some more wrinkles, again, reference would help~~
(Ah, and do think about that west some more... You would probably have to see it on the other side to translate the feeling that it's actually a whole west [or is it?], not a... half of a west hanging on the other side.)

As for the colors, I can't help...
Except that it will probably be easier to get a good color scheme and the values more correct, if you don't paint part by part, like you have started. The background white especially might distort the values.

I keep editing and editing this and editing something else than what I was supposed to ... edit.
I really like the look on his face! Don't really understand it in the character's context, but that's a really yummy face he's making.

[Jikan]

Thanks, that's really helpful. Specially for pointing out the arms thing, I have measured it and the one holding the mate is a little longer, although I corrected the legs for the CG already. I need to fix that left arm a little, really, although it's going to be quite a pain in the ass once the sketch has already been scanned, and I don't tend to draw directly into Photoshop. Well, that makes for another new stuff to practice.

As for the west, you are right, I was thinking that too. I think I'll insinuate it a little on the other side. As for the whole color thing, I have a scheme on my mind, but I tend to color by parts because I dislike seeing big areas of flat color, I'd rather have white. But I tend to be quite a maniatic person with all those color schemes things, as in always trying to find the perfect combination. Too many chinese movies, I think.