Help needed on character concepts

[ImagineTheEnding]

Recently I decided to scrap a large amount of my portfolio and start a new. Right now I am concentrating on character concept. I've done a couple, and I would love a critique. Especially the one I am working on now.


Right now I am just doing her head. A full body shot will be included later. I feel as though there is several problems with this currently, and I just can't pin point it. Something with the proportions in her face and perhaps some of the shading. I need to go in and shade her lips, but I don't think that's the issue.

Working on hair tomorrow. Will come back with more progress.

Here is another one I completed a couple days ago. Few things wrong here and there but over all I think it turned out pretty well.

[Falchion]

Er, why are her shoulders pinched up like that? Any chance of seeing what's underneath the paint on that piece? I'd strongly recommend reviewing some human anatomy.

[LightandDark]

Nice color

one glaring proportion problem that I see with the first is the proportion of the head relative to the neck and that is probably what is bothering you.

From the way your under-drawing looks it seems as though you neglected to draw the ears and the round outline of her skull(usually a sphere) which would have helped you to keep proportions. This appears in almost every drawing guide and I know you probably know this, probably wanted to cut to the shading but doing a more complete basic drawing procedure will give you an overall better result.

Always helps to Google for images of facial anatomy for reference so you know the under-structure of the face and its surfaces and thus can be more sure about roughly where things are located.

Never skip the fundamentals.(that goes double for the 2nd character image where there are no proportions)

[ImagineTheEnding]

Oh okay. Thanks guys.

Oh well, I always look up a lot of reference when I do the under drawing. When I did the penciling under the coloring, I worked in the structure. It wasn't as though I strictly colored with photoshop without doing fundamental work. For future character concepts I'll make sure to do more with the under drawing though. To avoid problems pointed out by you guys.

I am still working things out, so there are going to be problems here and there. I'm learning is all. I'll fix the head size.

[ImagineTheEnding]

For future people who critique: Any sketching or corrections to proportions are welcome. Just so I can see where I went so wrong.

I am confident in my anatomy and drawing, and feel as though I just fumbled in the character sketches. Cye's (the second character) pose might have just been a little too odd. I could just lower her shoulder and give her a simpler stance. One that a human can actually do.

I do agree that I messed up by not drawing the ear on Mourning. When I work on this more, I'll draw it in.

[AndreM]

Alright you already mentioned the awkward pose(and proportions) of your 2nd character (Cye) I have a few questions for you

Why is she holding the knife like that? It sort of points away from her, instead of pointing down - It should probably be turned 90 deg to make sense. Try holding a kitchen knife and compare it to her grip - its awkward and definitely not something a weapon savvy person would do.

What is she looking at?
pointing her gun in the opposite direction suggests she's not really engaged in anything, yet she is running and holding a gun and a knife?

Where does Cye keep her weapons? (and what about ammo and such?)

The knife / Pistol combo is a tough one - Personally I would just stick to the pistol and keep the knife sheathed. (Hard to reload when wielding a knife, worse aim, potential suicide)

I think Cye should consider a sports bra - running without one can be painful, especially with her size.

On the technical side I really like your colours, but your light source is inconsistent if you compare the shading of her head to the rest of her body.
Not sure if this is just a matter detailing, but her arms seem very cylindrical and jointless - especially the left one.

[DinaCardillo]

Cye reminds me a lot of Kara Starbuck from Battlestar Gallactica. Maybe you should review the concept and try to make it more distinctive? As it is it looks pretty unremarkable.

Also I think you should redraw the arms and shoulders. Right now her left arm looks longer than her right, and the way the arm attaches to the body doesn't look right.

[ATP]

A couple of initial points, sorry in advance as I can't redline -my current comp. doesn't have image editing software.

I don't want to go on a rant about what's right and wrong, so I'll just say how you can get better.

Getting better at showing action: do some gestural studies of models - do them for 10 to 15 mins at a stretch, 1 min per gesture. It'll teach you how to delineate action without sacrificing anatomical accuracy.

Getting better at anatomy: life drawings, photo studies, reference drawings and anatomy books. No easy way around that, just get into it and grind out as much as you can until your wrist turns to powder.

Getting better at conceptual design: take a look at some of Sinix's video's on youtube (Sinixdesign.) He usually talks out what he's doing and how he's doing it, as well as giving helpful advice and solid theory discussions.

Getting better at invention: look at things on the internet, find pictures of things that look cool, save them. Building a reference library means that you can imagine things like sci-fi and magical stuff but have it grounded in reality - it means you have reference to work off of, as well as having something relatable.

Otherwise, keep up that portrait study - consider rechecking your measurements as you go along, or flipping the image horizontally. That helps too.

Soldier on!

[TinyBird]

What on earth is that green cap? I mean if the point of the brim in the cap is to shield your eyes from the sun, what point is it to make the brim so short that it doesn't shield the eyes from the light?
Also though you say you structure your characters, do you structure them geometrically? There's this flatness in several parts of the images (the first one's nose/side of the jaw and the breasts on the second) that seem to be missing one "plane" and end up looking like two pieces of paper put on top of each other. The rimlight on the first character are only increasing this effect.

Also the leg that's on the ground looks like it's both broken from the knee and that muscles are very weird, as if she had two of the same side legs.

EDIT: Also seriously get stuff like the shoelaces right. Things like that are pretty basic, in the way that there's shoes with shoelaces everywhere and getting them wrong looks really shoddy, and I have to say I've never yet seen a boot with shoelaces like that, and even if there are, those look awfully lot like a mistake:

Also just asking, is she deliberately holding the gun in her left hand? Not saying she couldn't be, but often times stuff like that happens when you flip the image and don't remember to flip it back or just bad planning.