Evan's Art Critique Thread

Allie:

Coloring is definitely your greatest strength at the moment. I don't find myself questioning any of the color choices, and the application is mostly handled well. Though I'm not sure if it's a specific stylistic choice, I did notice that you use a lot of heavy brush strokes which sometimes aren't blended. The contrast between these hard lines and the soft shading is a little confusing to look at.

It makes certain parts of the picture look more polished than others, and doesn't show a clear stylistic vision. I think you're heading in the right direction with coloring. My only advice is to experiment with ways to make your different coloring techniques work more together.

Your overall composition seems good, but the framing is a little odd at times. As an example:

With this picture there is a lot of "blank" space. The overwhelming majority of details are concentrated on the face, but the rest of the canvas leaves little to observe. The right arm is in a specific position, but ends up falling off the page in a way that makes this posing lose its impact.

This effect is also noticeable in the Kama picture, wherein his hand holding the sword is the brightest and most noticeable part, but the sword is almost entirely out of frame. His face is the next most pronounced part, but it takes up the least amount of space, leaving us with a lot of canvas dedicated to the back of his body with a mostly obscured pose. It sends the eyes back and forth between the hand and face, leaving the image difficult to focus on because it's not clear what the focus of the image is.

I would recommend putting more thought into how you want to use your space and considering what type of impact you want each picture to have on the viewer. You don't have to fill every bit of the canvas, but think about how everything being shown contributes to the overall image.


The area I think you need the most work in is structuring. There are some recurring issues in anatomy and posing. Your symmetry and perspective are a little off at times, and the posing can get awkward.

You're on the right track here, but at the same time you're making some basic mistakes. It never hurts to go back to the beginning and practice the fundamentals. I would advise more practice in figure drawing, life studies, and anatomy in general.


That's everything that stood out the most to me between these few pictures. Hope that helps, and good luck!

Aura:

Overall I think you art is really good, and that made this a pretty tough critique to do haha. A lot of the things I noticed were small, since you're not making any major mistakes that I can see. Overall I think you have a strong sense of style, and good understanding of color and structure.

Where I start to see some flaws is in Lighting. You sometimes stray from the light source slightly, and occasionally apply light in strange places. Here are a few things that stood out in the first image as an example:

The amount of light reflecting around her is a bit too much, and it's often not clear what it's reflecting off of. There's also an excessive amount of highlights on the hair in this picture despite the character being in the shade. The bits of light poking through the treetop seem more like an afterthought, and the ones hitting the tree trunk are very orange and look out of place. You do have a good general understanding of light (which shows) but there's still some room to improve there.

The most questionable aspect of your art is probably the style in which you color hair. you're hard shading the hair in such a simplistic manner that it noticeably contrasts with the soft shading you use for everything else. The faces you draw are approaching a line-less level, but the hair is still drawn in big anime-esque chunks. Your simplistic hair and realistic faces are both being done very well, but it's a little odd to see the two used in conjunction like that.

Otherwise I noticed that in these three pictures there is a distinct lack of emphasis on the bodies as compared to the faces and hair. This stands out most on the lower two images, in which the bodies are very flat and lacking substance. Even though the outfits are simple, a better level of texture on the clothes would bring them more in line with the faces. The creases also seem a bit odd in the last image, but with such a small sample size it's hard to say much else about that.

That's most of what I could gather from what you showed since the three are all chest-up and mostly without backgrounds. Here are a few of the smaller things that stood out:


All in all I think your art is very good and has a certain uniqueness to it. You also do a good job of capturing characterization. Keep up the great work!

Shishi:

You have a very strong art style, and it's clear that you have a good understanding of the important aspects. You have a good sense of color and shading, which gives a decent amount of texture to your work. No immediate problems stand out in the areas of anatomy, structuring, and composition either. A lot of the things I noticed were subtle and less robust.

Your lighting is handled very well, but at times it can be hard to tell where the light is coming from. It feels like shades and highlights are being placed haphazardly sometimes. For example:


There are also a few weak points in some of the anatomical structuring.


You're doing pretty well in those areas, but more practice with anatomy and perspective is never a bad thing. I also noticed in the last picture that there is very little blending between the character and the background. A few blades of grass pop up in front of her legs, but she isn't casting a shadow and there is no other indication that she's actually in this spot - no flattened grass nor shadow on the tree trunk. It looks like she's been pasted on the background without it feeling like she's actually there. The color coordination is good in this regard, though. I'm not sure if this problem stems from lighting alone or the difference between how the girl and background are shaded. Something to think about, though.

What stands out to me the most from these four pictures is a certain stiffness in the characters. I noticed that all but one of the faces are straight up and down, lining up perfectly with the canvas. They are then either at a frontal or 3/4 angle. The poses are also a bit stiff except for the last one, although that suffers in other ways. There is very little variation in the faces we see here. Hints at emotion are only slight, making some of them feel less organic than they maybe should.

Although I don't know the context of the first picture, it's almost disturbing how the casual poses are when paired with such hardened faces. The rigid poses and serious faces contrast a lot against the peace and love signs. If that was intentional then it's working very well.

The emotion in picture two seems pretty spot on for what's being shown, so I have no qualms with that one. In the third picture we see a very flashy girl in a really bright and open outfit... but very little is on her face and she isn't posed any particular way. The picture does a good job of capturing the details of the subject, but I don't feel like it's getting the personality enough. The same could be said about the fourth picture. A girl sits in a peaceful setting sipping a drink. The picture shows relaxation and relief (in the form of shade, sitting, and drinking) but pairs all of those things with a face that is very difficult to read. I can't tell at all what the girl is feeling or what her personality is, so it feels like we're not getting the depth out of the picture that we could be.

On a brighter note, I did like the second image a lot. I wanted to take a second to interpret it, because I find it to be really good in general. Shown is a stern woman inbetween light and dark. She holds a sword in front of her, with the handle on the light side and the blade falling on the dark side. It implies doing bad things for good reasons. The woman is also wearing a dark jacket, but underneath is just her skin contrasting with it. It puts dark on the outside of her, leaving a pillar of light up the center, further implying that she's surrounded by bad things despite not being a bad person. There's light inside where she's vulnerable. The flower on one side opens up even more room for speculation. It's a really fun image that gives the viewer a lot more to think about than they might first realize. I could argue the same for the first picture with the conflicting messages I mentioned before.


Ultimately, I think you're a very talented artist and you have a lot of skill in the technical aspects. Aside from the topics I brushed over already, I would most recommend taking more creative approaches to drawing, and trying to loosen up a bit. Your style is really good and holds up well, but it also feels a little too comfortable. I would suggest challenging yourself in as many ways possible with things like new styles, new genres, even new mediums. Either way, it's always a pleasure to look at your work. Keep it up!

Baphomet:

You have a very recognizable style and a creative approach to subject matter. I think your greatest strength lies in expressions and body language. Your art is very organic and the characters' moods and dispositions are represented well.

Structurally, there are a few issues. There are occasional anatomy errors and inconsistencies in the characters. Although it's often disguised by your whimsical art style, it seems like anatomy might be one of your weaknesses. I would recommend spending some time practicing more realistic figure drawing. Even though you don't usually draw realistic anatomical proportions, it's important to understand the "rules" before you bend and change them.

I also think that your style is a little too limited sometimes. It feels like you're conforming to a very specific set of rules when drawing each character, instead of exaggerating them each individually. There is an element of chaos at a first glance, but over time you begin to realize that there are a lot of similarities between characters. It makes the style feel kind of confusing, because it is not clear what the goal of it is.

For example, here are a few well-known cartoons:


That same fluidity would also greatly benefit the way you draw faces. The most noticeable issue to me is the way that you're drawing faces. All of them look almost exactly the same. The characters tend to have some small extra details in their faces (like dimples or facial hair variations) but the core features are all almost identical. The framing of the faces is also the same.

Compare these two examples:


Otherwise I noticed a few small issues like wobbly lineart and inconsistent lighting.


I think that overall your art is going in an interesting direction. You're on a good track to keep moving forward, but make sure you don't stay in your comfort zone too much. My advice is to keep experimenting, but also to revisit the fundamentals sometimes. Creativity is definitely a strong point, so I look forward to seeing what you can do!

Not sure what kind of crit I'm looking for, maybe just something to motivate me to improve? 
that being said, don't go easy on me!



Also, painterly shading is something I REALLY struggle with. Trying to get comfortable with it is like my biggest hurdle as an artist.