The Critique Community Thread

[IdiotWithPencil]

don't know if this works for yah but try sharpening the eyes since you make them a bit too round

also love the poses =D

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

aaah thank you

The issue I seem to have though is balancing the sharpness so that the character doesn't look like a villain. She looks a lot more devious with sharper eyes... but thank you! I'll keep trying

[hotsubsandwich]

Oh that is good info to have! Thank you, I like how it looks with that shadow and how much it really softened her gaze to have everything tilting upwards! That is definitely more of the look I was trying to go for.

As for backgrounds, I'm just not very comfortable drawing them. Before drawing this one chapter of my comic i completely avoided drawing backgrounds as much as possible. One issue I have run into is that my character's angle doesn't match the angle of the background so the characters begin to look pasted on and not involved in the environment, although LordVincent touched on the pasted on part with adding shadows beneath objects. Since you. Mentioned texture, is there a way to add texture without it taking 1000 years to color? Part of my issue with comic pages is the amount of time they take to do correctly.

[IdiotWithPencil]

I'm not an expert in animations but I think this animation needs more in-betweens cause it looks a bit too choppy also I think a bit of the timing is wrong, this is a fairly quick promo so try making it in ones instead of twos since ones are better for quick movements

that's just me though and I'm really not an animator(done one shitty animation on flash)

[hotsubsandwich]

I actually think what you have reads really well, but if you wanted to make the eyes more distinct I think the best way to change it is just to angle them a bit more. Have them point downward more toward the nose. Here's an example of what I would do.

I hope this helps!

[LordVincent]

Since you. Mentioned texture, is there a way to add texture without it taking 1000 years to color? Part of my issue with comic pages is the amount of time they take to do correctly.

Most people drawing comics (or illustrations for that matter) don't add textures in the most complicated and manual way they can. Traditional artists use sponges, stamps, fabrics, etc with their paint to create a texture fast and expressively. Digital artists use brushes and patterns. This goes for things like grass, ashphalt texture, stars in the sky, etc. Sometimes using something so simple as a soft-dotting brush at a low opacity in a slightly different color to give highlights is enough for texture. With glass for example, "texture" would be reflections to create a feeling of glass. People don't stare much at details though, especially not in comics. Hell, overdetailing can create a messy look (a problem one of the comics i mentioned as my inspirations actually has) and make it hard for the reader to focus on the text. No, what you want is to create a detailed but harmonic impression. so with glass, simply giving implications of sky and light reflections will do most of the time. (unless the glass is part of the main "topic" of the frame. Say if a character is seeing their own reflection in it.)

[dawgofdawgness]

You're self taught?? That's amazing!
I barely know anything about animation but

I think you should bring this out, maybe it will make the movement pop out more. Since right now the timing seems a little too even for a scene with a galloping creature.

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

Thank you!
I played around with her eyes and I think they're good now?

(omg this thread is so much fun lol )

[LordVincent]

Yes that looks great, aside from some difference in direction/focus of the pupils! but the shape of the eye itself is good.
I feel your pain, I struggle with asian eyes too.

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

difference in direction/focus of the pupils!

Oh shoot-- someone noticed XD
I'd correct them, but I'm too content right now maybe later.

[LordVincent]

Oh shoot-- someone noticed XD

HAHA SORRY, most people don't care, I'm just... way too obsessive with pupil direction. Honestly it is something I have had to force myself to practice to care less about, it's that bad with me.

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

on the bright side, I'm sure all your characters have LASER FOCUS

[Tanisha]

So I'm trying to color an old Christmas story of mine in a different way and make it more dreamlike looking than the normal style I was going with. I'll show two examples

It's not too big of a difference but on the normal ones I keep my lines black and don't use any textures. While on the dreamlike ones I add textures and color the lines with a reddish color. I'm not sure if the effect is a little too much and the normal style is already dreamlike enough? I was never good at using textures soooo <__<

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

I think they look pretty great, especially the dream variant!
There's a fairly significant difference between the two styles. I like how the illustrations look with the colored lineart, all sweet and bubblegummy

[Tanisha]

Thank you! ; _ ; I’m trying to find a balance between the two since I’ve been critiqued before for my work being way to saturated! So this is reassuring c;

[Luminosophy]

Honestly I think I would advise against rotating the eyes. Besides it not being at all what makes people look asian (any photograph of an asian person will in fact have rounded eyes that sit normally), it's also been used as a rather lazy/ offensive stereotype in the past.

These are some things I've noted tht add up to a common look when I studied photos of people from various Asiatic backrounds. Epicanthic fold is the most common for eyes, but some Asian people don't have, just as some Caucasian and African people do in fact have it.

Facial structure is usually very rounded and rather flat, so I wouldn't have the cheeks protrude nearly as much. A trick I use is to have most of the line weight concentrated at the "back" of the eye, where the fold reveals the eye more fully. Around the front the skin appears tight, so the line weight is left much thinner. Eyebrows are interesting, they're commonly very short in length and start thin, and thicken out at the end, for both men and women. I usually avoid drawing much of the bridge of the nose from front on as well, because it projects less and slopes quite a bit in side profile (that's just my personal style though, eliminate detail that isn't very prominent.)

Honestly what you had wasn't too far off from looking Asian. If anything I think the other kids could have more experiments with different eye shapes.

[Luminosophy]

Well here's a quick example that ties into what LordVincent mentioned about the illusion of texture rather than detailing it all out. First and foremost I'm a cel-shader in colour and a black and white inker in comics. All my detail is done through drawing, so when it comes to colour I pretty much just BS the details. I hate spending hours on end painting things. ¯(ツ)/¯

For the wall I just quickly used a slight shadow colour to create the effect of some aging in the wall plaster. I only needed a few spots in the whole picture for people's mind to fill in the rest. For the plants, just blotching down colour and tone inflections. The brain can take that information and reasonably put together the shape and form of the plants on it's own. Granted this is probably too lazy for what some people would want with their style but my point stands, there's no need to spend hours on it. Only personal desire. Sometimes over-rendering can even make things look worse. Grass, hair and fur are especially things you want to allude to, not render out every single strand. There's ways to do this without texture brushes but that's also stylistic choice.

As far as figures vs environments, which one do you draw first? And have you considered perspective grids? There's plenty you can find on google.

[LordVincent]

Besides it not being at all what makes people look asian (any photograph of an asian person will in fact have rounded eyes that sit normally), it's also been used as a rather lazy/ offensive stereotype in the past.

dang i had no idea. I feel dumb!

I dunno much about the racism asians face. The racism that exists in sweden is often directed towards muslims so I know more about the bullshit they have to deal with and the stereotypes they are accused of.

[dawgofdawgness]

How do you.. Do foreshortening? I tried to do figure practice and I can't seem to get the ones with foreshortening right. Like I just drew a boxy blob for the gun here. (yes it's a gun)
Also any tips on how to improve the overall drawing? I'm trying to save my characters from looking too stiff

[lunaartemisasama]

Ok. I may not a be pro or even close but I have been reading manga since a lonnnng time ago, so I hope that helps. BTW I read Bloodroot it's pretty cool and I love Netsozou Trap.

Anyway, let's go the point. I think one of the main differences in the shoujo drawings is the round eyes **, **the eyeliner (or eyelashes? lol) and the frilly wavy doll .like hair and a rounder face. Also a smaller nose and mouth.

Something like this I suppose? (I am guilty of shamelessly redraw it just to make me unsderstand )

Anyway I do like your drawings :), and I suppose the more "femenine" character of Bloodroot is Tina not only because of her assets *cough * you can see her lips, round eyes, lot of eyelashes lol, and and smaller nose (I think).