Game of Thrones fanart, Melisandre.

[Ceinwen Fang]

I'm pushing my portraits this year and want to really polish and hone my style somehow. All critique gratefully received, brutal, constructive, both or neither. TIA!

[Elwell]

Do you have reference?

[Aqualeot]

It might be helpful to draw her body without clothes first and then add the dress. Her lifted leg looks off. Also, the face and neck is seen straight on, while the upper body is at an angle. Take a look in a mirror and stand in the same position and you will see the solution to the neck issue. Basically, focus on structure first!

[Ceinwen Fang]

Elwell- not so far... I will go and find some now though.

Aquealot- I don't mean for her leg to look lifted, oops. Thats smoke coming from the shadow assassin finger, I will have to move it for sure. Her legs are supposed to be both firmly planted... here's an overpaint of how I see the structure... It does need fixing, I'll think about that. Thanks both for your help

[Ceinwen Fang]

After taking some ref photos and pondering the structure, here's another wip

[Giacomo]

Not to be too harsh--but (as I often say) all the forms here are kind of "20% wrong" in terms of proportion and foreshortening. I'd suggest you study your reference photo a lot more closely--even if you're going for a kind of stylized realism, I think the large masses of the body need to come across as more volumetric (3D) than they are now, and her pose needs to feel balanced in terms of weight distribution. (If you post your reference photo, people will be able to give you better feedback.)

[LaCan]

On top of what's already been said - don't draw your skeletons like that. Who cares about pelvis minutia or number of ribs. What you need is simplified representation of volume of the main bone masses. You'll see how much solidity your figure is lacking if you try to draw her pelvis and ribcage as solid volumes.

The only details you want to keep track of are so called "landmarks" - parts of bone that typically protrude out to the skin, like end of iliac crest or thoraic arch. Landmarks are mostly symmetrical. They can help you identify orientation of the main masses in space when looking at the reference or trying to construct the figure.

So draw your skeletons as volumes+landmarks, ignore descriptive details as they serve no purpose in constructing the figure frame.

[FootstepsBeckon]

Why wasn't i invited to this thread?! ;_;

[Ceinwen Fang]

FB: Open invitation m'dear. ;D Good to see you!

LaCan: Oohh... I have been over thinking things... and yet, also not thinking enough?! (I don't really have a clue how many ribs there are, sad to say)

Thanks for the sketch, hugely helpful also I trawled out some reference pictures that I will now refer to along with my mirror and see what I can do to fix the structure. I know some of these deal with finer details that I shouldn't be thinking about yet, but I couldn't find any more figures that I could use for the anatomy stuff.



EDIT: And here's an update. I hope I understood the advice above properly and managed to improve the structure.

[Lulie]

Hello again

Have you tried flipping the canvas? There are a couple symmetry issues that bother me about the face given it's completely head-on: on the left, the cheek is very high and prominent compared to the right, and the right has a much more defined jaw line. The chin looks a bit off-center, nudged to the left slightly. Flipping the canvas should also help with the shoulders.

How realistic are you going for? If realistic, there should be more space on the outsides of the eyes (approximately this much).

For the neck: If it's going to be tilted at all away from the shoulders, you're gonna see the sternocleidomastoid muscle clearly, and it's going to start around the sternum and go towards the ear. (This video might help with learning the important muscles in the neck.)
Extreme example
Mild example
Another example (weird pose but closer to the angle you have the body at)

Hope this helps.

[Marlo]

It looks like you're afraid to really get down and dirty with this peice. Don't be afraid of this drawing. Don't be afraid to scrap this drawing, either. If you find yourself tooooo caught up with no improvement then its time to go back to the drawing board.
It's really good you found a lot of resources to make this picture, but I think the awkwardness comes from a lack of lightsource.
You're not showing any core shadows or volumes to her, without it, your figure seems flat.
Also, her pose, she needs more dynamics, right now it looks like she got awkwardly caught in a photo. If she were a mage, wouldn't she have a much more animated pose than one arm hanging limply out and the other stiffly to her side? Where is her expression? The oomph?

You should do some anatomy studies and see how the muscles relate to eachother. See the underlyin structure, THE SKELETON (!) Do studies on S curves and C curves.
Work on your shoulders!

[zephyri]

Marlo's pretty much nailed it, along with Lacan's simplified anatomy. I think you're best maybe finding better ref to work with and starting from scratch, but as a bit of a carrot, here's what the image might end up looking like if you apply some of the advice you've been given. Stronger simplified anatomy knowledge will allow you to be bolder with your lighting choices and give her much more form.

[Lulie]

Just found this, very relevant!:

[Ceinwen Fang]

Sam, I'm pretty humbled in the best possible way! Thanks so much for that, seriously worth a thousand words. Lots for me to work on, may take a few days now I can see how huge the issues are.

Cheers to you too Lulie for the anatomy refs, just perfect.

Love this site. Learned some new vocabulary too! S curves, C curves, landmarks... awesome.