Would like some crit on my Studies

**juxsen** · December 17th, 2007, 02:46 AM

Not sure if this is the right place, but the one and only last time I posted my work at CA I got sternly reprimanded for posting them at the wrong place. Ever since that incident I have been very hesitant; nevertheless my hunger to grow and succeed appears to outweigh my fear and the bitterness as well to see the works of numerous talented artists I simply cant help myself but to give it a another shot at it…

Anyways these are few studies I’ve done; I hope I can get some constructive criticisms if not any positive ones… thanks

**emerging** · December 17th, 2007, 03:13 AM

hehe cool i love ur love towards wrinkles (i have the same love hehe)
maybe one thing to suggest is that even thought you have quie a few exadurated wrinkles on the faces they still seems a bit too smooth and its because you might need to add more texture using a different brush (like "pepper spray" brush type) because i would love to see those old people with wrinkles and some nice textures of the skin (because our skin has lots of pores and imperfections - especially when we're old u know).. so yeamaybe that could enhance the effect

and another thing i noticed is that you use a lot of white for your highlights.. that might also make the face look a little plastic or rubbery. I've seen that a lot in art schools when pple blend the oils a lot and have no texture plus they use a white highlight.. and its quite hard to avoid that (personally im having troubles with that too sometimes)

**AlexandraBirchmore** · December 17th, 2007, 03:33 AM

wow, very nice! loving the wrinkles. My only criticism would be on the second picture, the background doesn't meld with the image very well. Perhaps experiment with the colour.

**permanent_pixels** · December 17th, 2007, 04:49 AM

i think it all looks pretty good..

**Molly** · December 17th, 2007, 07:35 AM

Very nice studies! I cant comment at the mo, because as you said, these are studies, and I see no flaws. Just keep on doing what your doing, maybe add some exotic environments to your studies too...

Why dont you start a sketchbook thread for the Sketchbook Forum? The more you post in there, the more crits and comments you will get. It will also help you get to know people more, and know who to listen to when it comes to critiques.

As for your previous post being moved - dont take it personally. CA wants people to work harder at their own skills, so that when they do post in the FF forum, their work is as good as a professionals. unfair,maybe, I dont think so, but I think its good to have a little bit of competition and a good ole kick up the bum!

Keep it up!
mx

**Cookiedough** · December 17th, 2007, 11:16 AM

These are great! I love how you did the wrinkles on the people and the tiger is great, can't wait to see the rabbit.

Hmm.. i think colorwise, you could add a bit oomph to the skin with some soft subtle blues and greens. It seems like when you go dark, you look for a similar tone of the color....making it a bit muddy at places.

**juxsen** · December 17th, 2007, 12:44 PM

emerging : Thanks... what you say is true of the texture and I've been thinking of improving on that, but the truth of the matter is I'm a late bloomer and very new in the artistic adventure and especially with Photoshop; only been using since Aug. this year; so as you can see I'm not quite sure what pepper brush is that you are talking of (all I did was to use the default brush and the blending tool), and on top of that not having any formal training nor the education… I suppose isn't much help when it comes to understanding the jargons, though I always had the love of art I only started of lately (which in my case I think I might be bit too late) so if you could enlighten me further I would really appreciate it.

AlexandraBirchmore : Thanks, it quite overwhelming to know that there is so many things I need to improve upon... I'll try and keep your suggestion afresh when I work onwards, much obliged

permanent_pixels : Thank you very much for your kind words, always am a sucker for those kind words

Molly : Thanks, starting up a sketchbook sounds like a really good idea but I'm not sure if I'm up for that yet... for now I think I'll stick around here and see where I can go from here

Cookiedough : Thanks, again as I've stated above I'm very very new to this artistic adventure. I did start off leaning more towards the animation field when I started (which was of very recently) but the more I started to get serious the more I figured out that there is much more elements that went with the territory, and illustrations being one of them I needed to improve I started tinkering with PS of lately... and the most simplest way I know as of now in achieving the highlight and the shadow were by simply using the darker value of the same color or white… but now that you’ve pointed out the and given me some really wonderful suggestion I think I’ll try them out next time… below is the rabbit model sheet… hope u like it.

Again, thanks for all the feedbacks… you guys are awesome, and I’m humbled by all your remarks and suggestion… I’ll work hard to improve in near future….

**emerging** · December 17th, 2007, 04:59 PM

ohh lol sry it was my bad... that "pepper" thing actually i dont think anyone lese uses it but me haha.. i just couldnt explain it better but you know how you have just a standard brush which looks exactly like the airbrush in real life? well if you go to brush rollout menu you'll see all the different brushes already preset for you and if you keep scrolling down you'll see a brush which isnt smooth like that so it looks like someone spilled a bunch of grains (man i really suck at explaining

sry) so thats what i meant.. so it wasnt you who didnt know the gargone it was me who is making it up as i go lol so yea what i meant is that the brush im talking about is really helpful since if you press it once it gives you bunch of dots in that area so you dont have to manually take a small sized brush and draw each one of them out (kinda the same as using a dry brush and pure paint in real life)

**emerging** · December 17th, 2007, 05:06 PM

ohh and also.. its never too late to start.. i started young so i just turned 21 right now but for instance i never started making music djing and dancing before 19 and even though i thought it would be too late (cuz i thought that it would've been so much better if i started earlier like 15 at most) but then i still kept at it and i dont wanna sound narcisistic or anything but i can see myself improving in those areas.. no i think its never too late (well unless you are like 70 or something lol, i hope ur not even then though u could still do it for the love of art). You know never stop.. thats it you started doing it, you havethe talent dont let the talent go to waste.. ive always thought that the talent is a gift for certain pple to develop its a gift because it brings more joy into our lives and we certainly hold the responsibility on opening that gift and not just looking at it and just putting it away but worshiping and improving it all the time.

**626elemental** · December 17th, 2007, 05:35 PM

It's good, i love the wrinkles. You're really good at getting the shapes right. Try to make things have different ammounts of shiney-ness (if that makes sense?) like skin isn't as smooth and shiney as hair is. Your faces have a very nice shape and form, but everything looks a little plastic, adding texture will help that.

Those tiger drawings are wonderful! He has such energy and personality, keep it up!

**andyhunt** · December 17th, 2007, 06:20 PM

Very nice stuff. your cartoon characters for the most part have a lot of depth to them. If you haven't been there b4, check out John K (Ren & Stimpy) 's blog. Its FULL of tips for animators and cartoonists. http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/

**kev ferrara** · December 17th, 2007, 07:41 PM

These are very nice... though the faces are a bit flat. I'm assuming you are working from front-lit photos. Very few front lit pix have good form. Fechin's paintings are the obvious exception: http://www.intellsketch.com/plugins/...6&diapo_page=5

Try to get more cool colors into the skin tones to contrast with all the warm. Its a bit monotonous/mono-tonal. This will bring a bit more life to the pix. Also on the two female portraits, the first one is totally lacking in cool colors, so the color is not very interesting. The second one has a very vibrant blue background, but the blue is not reflecting onto the side of the face. The planes of the side of the face would naturally reflect the background (see Sargent's discussion of portraits.) If you do that, the orange of the face will glow much more.

kev

**juxsen** · December 18th, 2007, 05:39 PM

much appreciated for all the remarks suggestion, I'll try to work them in, in my next progression... thank you guys...

Anyways I have two more pieces here, Crit away...

**juxsen** · December 18th, 2007, 11:33 PM

new WIP piece

**artbyRILEY** · December 20th, 2007, 06:11 PM

Wow I really like your attention and detail in the portraits. I like your methods in the wrinkles and in the red blanket material. How did i=you get the shimmer in the red material? The only question that I have is did you stretch the portrait on the right with the women with gray hair? It all looks great keep going.

**juxsen** · December 20th, 2007, 06:29 PM

artbyRILEY: Thanks I appreciate the comment... as for the shimmer I just used saturation to my advantage, by that I mean... I painted with the darker value and the least of the same color and then used the soft edge brush to blend those two values together. I also use dodge tool not much though, just here and there... As for the women with the gray hair... no I didn't stretch the portrait... it's just that she doesn't have any teeth so naturally when she closes her mouth it looks rather squashed... does that make sense... anyways thanks again for the props...