Mermaid

[Soteniliene]

I'm not sure what this would be considered, if it would be a fast sketch/color, or what. I'm sorry, but I've never done a realistic looking person before, since I am usually a manga/anime style. I used a tablet, and SAI painter for this piece.


I have never had formal training, but learned on my own. I was wondering if you guys thought that I had any future in the professional art world?

[SAGIR]

I'm not yet a professional myself so I can't answer your question. I can comment on your work.

It is still very much manga style rather than a realistic person, the proportions of the facial details are exaggerated and many details are missing, it is also too flat. But as a cartoony character it is quite good.

One more thing is that the neck is not effected by the rotation and tilt of the head which makes it look weird.

Rock on!

[Novbert]

Your question can't be answered having seen only a rough sketch from you (though rough sketches can tell a thing or two about the knowledge of the person who created them). I think everyone can have future in the professional art world but it doesn't depend on talent (or I go further - it has NOTHING to do with talent), but on hard work and practice.
I think there's no problem with manga style. Draw what you like to draw! Drawing should be about fun .
About the piece: I think you have many things to learn about anatomy (both body and facial). Many people tend to think that a stilized style doesn't require anatomy knowledge. WRONG! Stilized drawings (or anime-manga, call it as you like) are simplified renderings. But you must know everything about your object first, to know what and how to simplify.I'd recomment you to learn anatomy, learn how to build face and body. It's really worth.
Just some issues: nose too long, nose and lips aren't in the symmetry line of the face; face is rotated in a very unnatural way (it's facing the viewer - which is possible, but try to keep your head in this position in front of a mirror. It hurts, isn't it? and this way you can also observe that the neck should look much more twisted - currently it doesn't seem to be twisted at all); eyes don't have colored part, and highlights, shoulder is too low and bent too forward, ears arent rotated with the angle of the face, that things on her neck look like wounds, scales on the face and on the body don't really work (mainly 'cause you draw outline for all of them), and the shading is really flat.
And I know it's only a sketch but cleaner linework would be nice.

Keep on practicing!
And welcome to CA!

[PetarB]

As the above said, a basic understanding of anatomy is good, but it's actually even more important in conveying a reaslitically 'simplified' manga style like you've aimed for here. The angle of the neck has thrown out the position of the head dramatically, which is a lot of the source of the problems. The forehead is another issue; it doesn't exist at the moment. As for the positives, the ear concepts is good, and I like the easy rendering of the upper blades of the back. Keep practicing, body work can only get better in this way.

[Soteniliene]

Now?

[Drunken_hand]

That's somewhat better

The face is actually kind of on a skew now, if you can tell (bottom half of the face looks like it's tilted from lower left to upper right). The eyes look like they could be shifted down and to the right some more. You might want to actually turn the head a bit more (this may mean a lot of redrawing) so it's closer to a profile view.

I'm gonna echo the 'learn anatomy' sentiment. Really important. Also, try drawing from life: draw your friends, family... go dig up some corpses and draw them if nobody you know will stay still long enough. Corpses have the added benefit of being posable... oh wait, rigor mortis. Anyhow, while realism/life may seem only very distantly related to anime, anime, like other stylized art, comes from a careful consideration of what aspects, details and nuances of realism the artist wants to keep and what he wants to toss, what he wants to distort, and what not. You'll probably hear this around this site a lot, but you gotta know the rules before you can break em'. Once you got that down, it's easier to switch to different styles, create your own, etc... You might be thinking 'I just want to draw anime' and find this detour rather discouraging but give it a shot at least. Good luck out there, and welcome to CA.