please critique me... I am a critique virgin...

**Bleeding-Gypsy** · June 18th, 2009, 04:09 PM

I have yet to have any of my drawings/paintings critiqued... these are my three favorite drawings that would be awesome to have ripped apart...
Thanks!!!

**Ilaekae** · June 18th, 2009, 05:34 PM

The second pic of the head is your weakest piece. The stylized approach is a bit haphazard in that you're completely ignoring the basis that stylization was drawn from. It's a head. It has a skull underneath it's skin, but that skull under-structure has disappeared completely, and become sort of a balloon-like skin with no relationship to what is supporting it.

If the eyes are that large, the underlying structure wouldn't be so hard-edged and would have to make allowances for a believable method for the jaw to attach and move. This lack of thinking about "what's inside" also affects the neck to the point that it doesn't seem to be capable of supporting the head shape.

I'd do a lot more thinking about the closeness of the eyes, the fact that eyes that large would definitely "bulge" forward from the eye sockets a good bit more (they look like they're flat cutouts somebody stuck in there now), how the nose falls between them, and give more of a visible structure to the lower face and neck. It can be angular and "non-real," but should still make logical physical sense in the world you're creating.

The two young ladies are actually quite beautiful and mysterious, but you seemed to have gotten hungry around the time you were doing the hair on Venus. With such a lovely and intricate dress, and properly made-up face, don't you think she would want something a little more flowing and sexy in the way of hair other than "Hi. I have bed-head. Kiss me" before she went any further with her seduction attempts? I'd actually like to see this done in the ink style of Costume Party, too, to see if it was even more eerie...

Costume Party is rather nice and eerie without being frightening. I like it very much, but the twigs around the roses seem to be fighting the hair behind them. I might be better if they spread much further from her head shape to make them look less like something "stuck on." Watch the hatching with your pen work, especially in the area of her underarm/dress--it should be helping her dimensional rather than going in directions that follow the outline of the dress. It goes UNDER her arm, and does NOT end where her arm begins.

**hala** · June 18th, 2009, 07:24 PM

If this is your own personal style, then try to bring something more lively into your pics. I won't critique anatomy, that comes with practice and personal preference. But in general, your pics all have a very standard, straight on view of the subject. Try experimenting with angle/perspective.

If it's not your personal style, and you want to make the figures more realistic, it might help to

a) study lots of anatomy books ---there are links in the "studies/fine art" forum,

b) what personally helped me a long time ago was to draw the skeleton out, then draw the form over the skeleton with construction lines, then eventually, draw in the full figure. It helped me to understand the shapes underneath -- like Ilaekae said.

Don't ever give up

**Bleeding-Gypsy** · June 19th, 2009, 08:48 AM

thanks for the pointers. I see now exactly what you both mean! I wasn't sure how the second one wasn't working before, but now I can try to fix it!!! Yay! And I might try doing the first one in ink to practice cross hatching.

**Bleeding-Gypsy** · June 22nd, 2009, 11:49 AM

I re-drew the one drawing in inks. Hope you like it!!

**Bleeding-Gypsy** · June 22nd, 2009, 05:28 PM

it didnt upload before... weird... but here it is re-drawn

**hala** · June 22nd, 2009, 05:54 PM

It is definitely much better than the first one, just keep practicing with different poses/postures so that your characters don't look too stiff. Great job

**MiniGoth** · June 23rd, 2009, 01:10 AM

Stop hidin' the hands.

**Bleeding-Gypsy** · July 10th, 2009, 10:50 PM

Contemplation of a Lily

Just something new i drew up... thoughts?

**Cody Fox23** · September 10th, 2009, 02:23 PM

Firstly, I am not a great artist or know too much about specific artists, so hopefully when I say it looks like something from Tim Burton at first glance I won't be torn apart. However after taking more than a glance the differences come out. I really like this one as well as your style.