hey, i'm new, would you give me some advice please?

[schlopps]

hey everyone =D first time posting - tell me if I'm doing anything wrong...
so this is supposed to be the king/prince of hearts and i just wanted some general critique, but i really want advice on the crown, clothing/folds, chair and background (I don't usually do backgrounds,but should there be one?)

thank you in advance =]

oh and in case you're wondering what's up with his feet, the right foot is pointing kind of that way \, so his feet are like this /\

[schlopps]

anyone?

[Talpa]

If you’re not keen on backgrounds then a simple textured one would suffice. At the moment, though, the dark gray is simply too far from the general color scheme to stand on its own.

You also need to decide where (and what) your light source is. It is contradicting to have the back of the left arm lit when his back is in shadow. The light source appears to be directly above him otherwise most of his thighs would be in shadow. And then again there’s no light on his chest...? So you need to sort out your lights. Is it warm or cold light? And don't forget that everything casts a shadow...
Once you’ve got a light source it’s much easier working with clothes and fabrics.

What is he holding in his hand? Is he pointing at us?
Even if he's turning his booths away we should be able to recognize the back of the ankles.

[daveneale]

Ok-I'm more a fan of the paintover than the explainy in words thing:

The head is at some strange angle-did you use reference for this?...it's just that a common thing some people get dragged into is being a slave to the reference they want to use, so rather than using an image as a guide, they'll stick to the angle things are at in a picture and try to get it into the picture at any cost-this is similar to when you draw a head you like and then try to twist other body parts to suit it, rather than change it to fit the image as a whole. ANyhoo your head wa a little jutty outty from the body so I dragged it roughly where I thought it shold be. Another big thig is your very saturated trousers-they're quite distracting. The lighting looks like it's from behind the chair and in front of the figure so there would be a lot less light on the back arm-you dont need to show every detail in an image like this, you can have some totally black areas if you want-the viewer doesn't need everything to be visible, just inferred so that the image a a whole reads well. There are also some perspective issues on the chair I didn't tackle-but remember EVERYTHING you draw needs to be in perspective. You have a jice start-I like the foreshortening with the hand. Oh and one last thing, there's a drappery tutorial somewheres in the tutorial section I think, if not somewhere else around here (go search for it)...it talks about folds coming from tension points (the knee for example) and other important rules for drawing cloth. Good luck with it.

-D

[spaztastic]

the chair is out of perspective for how he is sitting, I would suggest adding space to the bottom of the pic and placing the chair firmly on the ground so the rest of it falls into place. I would get a ref and use it for that. His face looks very good, a little flat in color but the expression is nice. I would add some blue, yellows, pinks, and maybe a little orange to his skin to liven it up a bit. Also where is your light source? There are no definate shadows going on, make s the picture to flat without a light source. on his pants make sure you sharpen the edges to make it pop. his shoulder shoulder the one that is pointing at us, it should be higher.
here are a few refs for the chair, look at how the seat hits the back of the chair, and how the legs hit the ground.
http://images.marketplaceadvisor.cha..._chocolate.jpg
http://www.adcnt.com/product/030-00011.jpg
http://www.tamagallery.biz/images/fu...4.1003_web.jpg
http://www.sassandbenhomeinteriors.c...0%C2%A3225.jpg

refs for the crown
http://www.goldenstag.net/MiscSCA/Cr...mereCrowns.jpg
http://www.orthodoxgifts.com/images/...ing-crowns.jpg
http://www.goldenstag.net/MiscSCA/Cr...AnTirCrown.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1261/...8870449e_b.jpg

for the hair. First one is a tutorial.
http://9tutorials.com/2007/08/01/hai...-tutorial.html
http://z.about.com/d/mensfashion/1/5/h/N/long07.jpg
http://www.menshairstyles.net/d/1416...long+bangs.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2083/...a789afdf23.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/mensfashion/1/0/g/j/71856197.jpg
for the skin
http://www.paint-sculpt.com/images/p...one-pallet.jpg
http://www.henningludvigsen.com/imag...orkshop_07.jpg
http://www.idigitalemotion.com/tutor.../skintone.html

Hope these help enjoy, if you ever need crits feel free to pm me.

[schlopps]

thanks so much, guys! i wanted the light source to be somewhere on the right, guess i messed up though =P and no i didn't use a ref...if i did, i guess i would've gotten the head angle right. still thinking about what he should be holding in his hand, a scepter maybe?
but anyway, this was loads of help =) i'll look around for that draping tutorial

edit:
spaztastic, wow. thank you =D

[spaztastic]

you know I thought he was gonna be holding a remote for the tv
kinda like king of the couch potatoes. that's just me, I have a weird sense of humor. I think if you have him hold something, you should put more of a scowl on his like he is commanding some one to do something.
here are a few refs for the scepters,

http://www.masks-wigs-and-costumes.c...s/sceptors.JPG
http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/starofafrica.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Ba...6/jewel/19.jpg
http://www.kleinjewelers.com/images/scepter.gif
http://bp0.blogger.com/_pzICWg_Xk24/...52873%2529.jpg

[schlopps]

haha nice idea xD maybe i'll give him a remote
thanks for all the refs, they're amazingly helpful =]