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Hi all, I decided to start a little art thread because I'm looking for some good critique. I've been trying to improve a lot and its coming a bit slower than I would like, so any good feed back, positive comments or advice would be appreciated.

I will try to see if I can post art every weekend if I can, probably around the time I update my deviant art page.

Anyway these are some scans from my sketchbook to start with.


Rave Charging an attack...


Rave Drop Kick...

Seriously, you don't know how much I like the second picture. I really feel this uber kick on a super villain. In my opinion, if he is jumping like that, he should have his ears more in the back of his head because of wind * (gravity / 0,65). Except for that, I really like it. ^^

I can't quite tell what's happening in Pic #2 due to the awkward scan quality. Also, Pic #1's caption is titled, "Are Your Kidding?" ^^ I heart typos.

Otherwise, the art seems reminiscent of the Sonic comic styles way back when.

I agree with Frostflame in that the ears in the second picture should be going in the direction of the wind.

One thing I'll suggest with the first image is that if a character is channeling energy into the form of a ball the collected energy waves should connect in a circular and/or curved motion. Well, 'should' is probably too strong a word, but I feel that such lines can help enforce a focal point in the picture.

It's a nice, simple cartoony style which I see a lot of potential for some interesting poses, that jump kick is a good example of how flexible this style can be.

Thanks for all the advice on this picture. I'm going to rescan it tonight at better quality I already finished making some updates to it taking everyone's advice into consideration.

Okay so I revisited image #1 from this weekend and spent a lot more time reinforcing some details and I even did a background. Which I hate doing because I'm not particularly good at drawing them.

So I put Rave in what is one of two main possible settings for him fighting in my story. An Alliance Facility or the Ruined Former Capital City. I chose the Ruined city in this case because it was open area for a energy attack.



This was the end result. I took the advice of many of you and change the energy current for the attack into a more circular rather than seemingly random pattern.

I also tried to make up for the short coming of my poor background art by creating the illusions of: wind, light, and time. Wind is the only one I'm sure I pulled off well.

I think this came out a whole lot better than it was and I'm looking forward to more critique on it before I try to color it this weekend.

you spelt 'unexpectedly' wrong... but that's just a lil error. I like the picture, he looks like he's abut to get down to business. I can't really crit as I'm wank at drawing, only tell you I think it's cool :D

Hey Rave, watch the double post ok? You can edit your posts to add more- only double post in your own topics when it has been at least 3 days since your last post and no one else has said anything.

You seem to be getting better but I think you can go even further.

Id say work on the eyes a bit more and start doing more inking work - you could get some really cool drawings done if you inked em. Pencil is nice and all but Line art tends to look more professional and more like you have put more effort into the work rather and as you know- coloring clean line art is much easier than coloring sketch- and generally looks better (Generally).

I really appreciate you saying that Sage, and yeah I completely for got that I could use that edit feature for something like that. Doh!

I took what a lot of you said about picture 2 into consideration and I also thought about some of my current color work as well and decided to kill 2 birds with one stone. So here is the redo of Picture #2 which for now I'm calling "Dynamic Kick".



I changed to the direction of the ears to make more sense, adjusted the scan quality and levels. I'm holding back on inking this at the moment although I think I've gotten a little better at it, and Sage is right it makes a huge difference, I hesitant to do so until I'm done finding things to knit pick at in this drawing.

Then again now that I have scanned copy of the pencil work maybe I could print and Ink that and compare results.

Anyhow, what I need some help with is continued improvement here, and some ideas about color work, and some ways I can refine my process and technique. Right now I draw, scan, adjust levels in photoshop, and then color using the multiply blend mode on multiple layers. I also started learning the finer points of the burn and dodge tools.

Made huge difference as my banner and avatar look flat by comparison. Grrrr. Have to rework them now.

There is just one thing that I don't really get in this picture (haven't noticed before), when would you do a kick like that (looks like it goes totally towards right) when he doesn't even look in that direction. I don't know if I'm expressing myself correctly on this, but shouldn't he look directly at where he is aiming?

Interesting. I thought via the catch lights I had him looking in the appropriate direction. However part of the confusion is that I drew an action pose while debating a lot about the setting and focused on the pose itself.

To answer your question, I don't have a set-in-stone as to what is going on the scene, if there are multiple enemies in the scene it may resolve the eye direction issue (or I could just change the eye direction if its not clear), multiple villains was one idea I had for this.

Also it could be he's making eye contact with whom he is attack rather than focusing his eye on his foot.

Anybody have any ideas?

First off- ignore burn and dodge for now - you aren't ready for them! (Sorta- just trust me- don't work with it- its also normally destructive and makes it harder to edit or fix later)

Stick with new layers for shading - heck use lots of layers if ya have to, just don't use Burn and Dodge- you can try and reproduce the burn and dodge look- but do it by painting it with color instead, this will help your understanding of how colors blend and will help you see the short comings of burn and dodge- and where they are most useful.

Don't remember if you mentioned this or not already and I have to sleep- but if you don't have a tablet and you want to do digital coloring you might want to get one- even if its a Bamboo - which arent bad- just not as good as an Intuos...

I haven't given up on making the dynamic kick image better



But I'm going to shift over to the above drawing a bit because my female lead has been deprived of some much needed attention.

In this particular case I'm looking for some help and feed back with regard to drawing backgrounds, since I've pointed out its my largest weakness other than patience in general.

Something about the arm length vs the leg length bothers me in the drawing of the cute lead girl, the legs kinda look like they are one short piece while the arms are obviously 2 pieces and longer. It doesnt bother me like "HEY THAT WRONG!" its just a slight nag when i really examine it- it could just be that the baggy pants hide the shape and that's correct- but then it feels short since it looks like her foot is on its toes.

Still wanna see some inking... XD

I think you have nice, dynamic poses. :] The kick image is coming along nicely. However, the shading on the clothing really irks me. It seems like the change in shade is too abrupt, and not flowing with the material. It's not often to see small patches of highlights on something like pants. The green glow thing looks really cool though. Keep it up. :]