New Airbrushed Art, ~Faerie Tale~

Post finished and unfinished work here for critique and appraisal.
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What needs improvement most?

anatomy
12
50%
coloring
0
No votes
background
2
8%
It's fine as is ; P
10
42%
 
Total votes: 24

FaeMcCloud
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New Airbrushed Art, ~Faerie Tale~

Post by FaeMcCloud »

I've been working on this piece for the past week. It part of a story from my one my oldest rps, written with help from a friend. I tried some new filters on this, plus I took a shot at making a border. Plus, trying to do the usual, improve my anatomy and coloring skills. Any critque, comments, or advice on the picture or story is very much welcome. Click on the image, to read the full story.

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Link to DA account, feel free to comment there, if you want:
http://faemccloud.deviantart.com/

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Scimthary
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Post by Scimthary »

I love the coloring, so smooth. Great work!
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Post by Garrett »

That's great! Well done Fae, great work once again ^^.
FaeMcCloud
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Post by FaeMcCloud »

Thanks Scim and Garrett ^^ There's filters put on there, so the coloring does come out a little differently, LOL

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Jazzy
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Post by Jazzy »

Well, before I start: there's never a piece of art that couldn't be improved with critique. Really :P

I picked "anatomy", personally, for these reasons:
- her eyes take up half her face in what is not otherwise a stylised picture and are rimmed in black, with a pointy top left corner on the left one...eyes don't actually have top corners, they're ovals.
- Dangerously skinny arms. I'm underweight and have ugly bony arms, and even so, my wrist is only about 1cm narrower than my hand at its widest point, ignoring the thumb. It shouldn't be so obvious where the wrist becomes the hand, and the upper arm should also be more padded. Additionally, even though the arm's skinny, the hand looks as if it isn't- you can see the bones which connect to the fingers on less padded human hands.
- Similarly, the rest of her body and legs also seem a bit too skinny, and the shading on the legs needs to be smoothed out a bit so they don't appear to have a ridge in them.
- The thumbs are too long- thumbs come up to just past the palm, to maybe the first finger joint and no higher.
- The shading on the elbow joint (first joint, connects top of leg to body) makes it seem a bit disconnected from the body and pushed out a little.
- Either you see all of the bricks in a wall, or you don't see any, normally- seeing a few makes it seem like bricks pushed into a concrete wall.
- The flowers will droop down more if the creature's holding onto them by biting- you'll see more of the packaging covering them rather than a neat circle of flowers.

It's a pretty picture, obviously- it illustrates the paragraph well, and you can see they're sad together. It's also great to see a proper background on a picture; I haven't done one in years, and the background is as much of a focus as the characters. But the skinniness threw me a little; the rest of the things I pointed out are far more minor.
FaeMcCloud
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Post by FaeMcCloud »

Thank you for the critque Jazzy. It's nice when someone gives me one instead of saying, it looks nice ; P I appreciate it when someone says that as well, but you wrote so much, LOL

I think as long as I have been doing CG drawings, I usually go out of my way to make everything lineless, then leave the eyes in black. I lean toward a airbrushed/anime style, which I have yet to see anyone do yet. But considering it is so different, I can definitely see why someone might find the style off.

Aside from that, you probably have a point on the arms. I always have had trouble with them, especially on humans. Even if she was intended to be thin in the first place, I might have taken it over to an extreme. My eye for anatomy is improving, but I still have a long way to go.

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Settingshadow
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Post by Settingshadow »

I absolutely love your art and this is no exception! It's so beautiful. I love how detailed the background is. The grass is so pretty and realistic. Your shading is also particularly nice -- the trees are nearly photographic.

I don't know much critical about artwork, but I do know quite a bit about human anatomy, and I think hers needs a little bit of work. And since you asked for crit, I'm going to be picky

Like Jazzy, I think the major area that needs improvement are her arms; otherwise she's pretty well-proportioned. I'm not going to repeat things Jazzy said, but here are a few others:
Her upper arms are too short. According to my anatomy textbook and my own arms, the upper arm (counting up to the shoulder) is a little shorter than the forearm plus the hand, but longer than the forearm. Her upper arm is shorter than her forearm alone.

Fingers -- remember that over a third of your finger bone is inside the hand (you can feel this on yourself), so long fingers almost always necessitate long hands. Also, her thumb starts too low down -- in the thumb's case only about half -- or less -- of the thumb (in terms of bone) is what we think of as the finger; leave room for the other half in the hand.

One more thing on the fingers -- on her right hand she has her ring finger crossed over her middle finger. While possible, this is a pretty uncomfortable position and it will cause her index finger and her pinkie to flair out because of the muscles involved.
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Post by FaeMcCloud »

Like I thought, my arm anatomy needs much improvement ^^;; Right along with my hands. But I'm glad you liked the background, Setting Shadow. I usually don't use anatomy books, though I probably should >>;; I try to use my own hands and arms as guides. I wanted her arms to be especially thin and fragile looking. But that also leads to off looking anatomy : /

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Figment
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Post by Figment »

While I have great respect for personal style, I am a huge advocate of life drawing as a way to improve anatomy. I didn't start to really understand human anatomy even a little bit until I spent a few months at an art school, doing life drawings every day and attempting to emulate a hyper-realistic style. I think that personal styles like anime and cartoony stuff are best when they are built up from a foundation of realistic knowledge. If you haven't got access to nude models, sitting in a public place and sketching people and really paying attention to the forms beneath the clothing is a great way to practise anatomy. If you've got a full-length mirror you can sketch yourself in various positions. I also often make sketches from stock images (deviantart has a ton) because I no longer have access to nude models either. :P

I only suggest this because I think your art is great, truly beautiful, and you can only get better from here. I don't personally care for anime at all, and I find that her eyes are a big problem point for me, drawing way too much attention and distracting from the rest of the picture -- but that's a personal opinion and not a very useful critique, so feel free to disregard it entirely.
Settingshadow
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Post by Settingshadow »

FaeMcCloud wrote:I usually don't use anatomy books, though I probably should >>;;
Fae
I have anatomy books because I'm a medical student and thus have to study anatomy. But my figure drawing, while still awful, has improved a lot since I started learning all of the muscles and the skeleton.

Honestly, I think your figures are very, very nice -- her clothes are beautiful and I think her legs are nicely done. Arms are really tricky because the human mind is so focused on the hands, and in particular, the fingers that it "sees" those parts as being longer, bigger and more flexible than they really are.
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FaeMcCloud
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Post by FaeMcCloud »

Settingshadow wrote:
FaeMcCloud wrote:I usually don't use anatomy books, though I probably should >>;;
Fae
Arms are really tricky because the human mind is so focused on the hands, and in particular, the fingers that it "sees" those parts as being longer, bigger and more flexible than they really are.
Of course, there lies the problem. I don't exactly do super real humans, so my drawings are going to prone to being stylized ^^;; But that doesn't mean I don't have a background in real human anatomy. I took figure art classes for over a year, that did include nude models. Cartoonish drawing was absolutely not allowed. But despite all that, I can't say my skill improved there, if not hardly at all. My anatomy only started to improve once I had to make up my own poses. I'm funny like that ; P Though I am aware, it's generally agreed, if you want to draw human anatomy better, get to know how to draw real things first.

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