They're not suckish. We all start somewhere. All you need is to stop focusing on getting comments, and drawing for enjoyment. Being creative. In fear of sounding old, I never had internet when I was a kid, but I had a love for art and drew and drew and drew. I took every piece of artistic knowledge I could get my hands on, and I tried everything. I tried different art styles, mediums, I even tempted fate with my first scanner- a hand held scanner. You guys with flat beds dont' know how good you get it. Hand held ones ALWAYS scan crooked, and the resolution is crap. If I ever had issues with art thoguh, I'd always ask and learn from what I was advised. Nothing has changed about that- internet SHOULD have made this process easier
That's what this thread is for :) Getting advice. Just don't be discouraged ever with art. If you draw at your best, then why should you be? :)
Tip- Compare YOUR art with YOUR OWN ART. Alot of new artists compare themselves with pros and get depressed. They're professionals for a reason. MY art isn't as good as theirs. If you battle yourself for perfection, then you'll only improve. Your style isn't theirs.
For example-
This is a collage I've put together of me drawing a specific character called Alex over the period of 12 years 5 years ago now. I've come FAR with my art, and I started off not so stella but I'm getting better all the time, and so will you :)
This is my latest pic of him. Just keep at it, and don't beat yourself up about art. That's my rule :)
Please don't take all of that and disregard it. It is SUCH an important lesson I've learnt.
Now, for the real deal- critique.
Layout- Firstly, your layout of this page looks fine, so that's one thing you've done well in the picture. Essentially, if you divide a picture into thirds, the two lines either direction that you draw for the thirds is where the eye falls first- IE- the gun in this pic. The big problem you have here however is research. Ema holding a gun is cool, but that's not how you hold a gun. A big part of art is also research.
This guy has ALOT of excellent referance art for gun slinging, and don't be ashamed to ever use referances. I use referances alot. Find a pose that you like, cause this guy knows how to hold a gun. Gun have recoil, so there's a special way you hold it so your bullet flies straight and doesn't tear your arm off.
I've used this pose for one of my posters...
here and you can see how much of a difference a researched pose can make :)
One thing that's not QUITE layout, btu isn't anythign else really is her balance. Imagine there's a weight hanging from her head. If half of her body is on one half of the cord from the weight, and the other half is on the other side, then she's ballanced. In this, she's hanging to the right too much.
Proportion- This is a stylistic thing, but it's still something to take into consideration incase you want it. A realistically proportioned person is 7.5 to 8 heads in height. In english, if you measure the height of a head, and add another 7 underneath it, then that's approx a proper proportioned human (head to height wise.) There's ways of fudging this, but the waist is ALWAYS the center of the body. The hands always fall straight to half way down the thigh. The body looks fine on your pic, btu the head is very big. Again, it's style thing. If you like it big, then keep it big. If you dont' like your art, then why should others, right? You're the ONLY fan you have to satisfy.
Head- OK, so she has goggles, but if she was to slip them over her eyes, they wouldn't fit. Even with anime eyes, the goggles should look like they could fit (Unless you're doign a parody pic, in which case you make everything over the top). Your ears are a good height and length, but the eyes, even for anime need to be lower on the face. Realistic proportions say that the eye line is in the middle of the head (height wise), but anime has some give. That high is a little much. Some forehead is good :) This last comment is a personal preferance one, but emotion. She's got a cool pose, but is she just posing? Or is she wanting to shoot something. If she's angery or scared or tough, she should show it in her face, cause right now she has a neutral expression
Anger (3.7M mpeg)
Disgust(4.9M mpeg)
Fear(3.4M mpeg)
Joy(3.9M mpeg)
Sad(2.8M mpeg)
SurpriseWatch these clips slowly and spot where the face distorts. The eyes, the nose, the mouth, chin, cheeks.... in anime, you'll be wanting to draw the shape changes in the eye (If it's flat, arched or what), deep distortions around the nose, overall shape of the mouth and if the chin crumples, show this by a squiggle or something. If the expression still doesn't seem right, make the expression yourself.
A book I have on facial expressions that is one of my bibles is "
The artists complete guide to Facial expressions" by Gary Faigan. It's over kill for anime, but the last 2 pages are SO important, causeit tells you exactly how the face distorts in every expression. SO handy. I nail expressions cause of this book!
Gun- I'm not sure if you used a referance with this- if you did, practise makes perfect, but if not, then it's not a bad idea to.
Arm- Going off a referance would help on this, but her arm seems like it should be for shortened, but the jacket doesn't reflect this
This girl's jacket is too crumpled cause of the cut, but see how the jacket creases wrap around the top of her arm? That's a good way to show where the elbow is and make it look like the arm is coming towards you, but isn't short. That's a complex thing to describe though cause it's foreshortening...
The outfit looks good on her, so you've done well there :) A small tip for dressing characters is to draw them first naked and then put the clothes on (don't draw 'bits'- just the shape). Why do you do this? If you have the shape of the body, and you know that something hangs, then it'll cling at the top, and hang at the bottom of the arm. WAIT- the arm is already there to show you! :D It also shows clearly where creases should be (cause material likes to be flat)
I like the picture. I wish it were big enough to see it properly, and maybe not so dark (It was photographed in poor light from the looks of things.), but I've seen enough that you had alot of great intentions in this pic, and it's dynamic. It just needs some fine tuning. Sorry my comment was long. You seemed to put your art down, and I just wanted to let you know that that isn't the way of art. Art is a discipline- alot like martial arts. Paitence, practise, and perseverance is what makes the artist. That and learning right :)
My suggestion is next time you draw, ink your art with pen even if it looks crap at first cause you WILL learn how to make it better with practise, draw your picture with the aspiration that it doesn't suck cause you're putting your full effort in, and that you're drawing for yourself. The audience is along for the ride. You'r ein the drivers seat. Let it all go. Even if you don't get comments after that, after time you WILL improve. Maybe even immediatly with some of this advise.
My last tip- flip the image frequently and hold it up to the light. If the mirror image picture looks balanced, then you should be cool. If it looks un balanced, fix it till it does. A trick I picked up from.... Hmmm... who was it... I think it was Micheal Turner that told me. He also said he put mirrors around his desk so he could pull expressions for his art to see how they looked. It's capital advise :)
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Sometimes I think I'm the only person who actually sees that I'm proving slowly over time, so it's making me all fuzzy inside that someone is mentioning it~
