[fallenintoshadows]

Criticism {Can I have it?}

This was my first attempt at doing a full body (that wasn't chibi) and actually bothering with it rather than getting bored and rushing it. I noticed when colouring it there are a couple of mistakes in the outfit >w< This is my friend's elvaan character, Salacia.

[TheGrandMom]

Did you use the pose of the rdm in your signature for a guideline? LOL It certainly looks like it! Nice job! I'm always amazed at how talented people can be. Did you use a tablet? Or was this drawn the old fashioned way? LOL

[fallenintoshadows]

Oh no I didn't use my signature XD I completely forgot about that, that might have helped! Nah I don't have a tablet, I wish I did but they're so damn expsensive >w< I just drew this by hand, scanned it in and coloured it in photoshop :3

[Feba]

The proportions are just a little bit off (the ears are elvaan, but it's a bit shorter and pudgier than a hume), but it's pretty good otherwise.

Although I'd check the shadowing on the legs. It looks less like shadow there and more like somebody had an accident.

[TheGrandMom]

Originally Posted by fallenintoshadows

I just drew this by hand, scanned it in and coloured it in photoshop :3

Ah, thats how its done! Yes the tablets can be expensive. I bought one but never got the hang of it so I packed it away. Then we had a flood and it was ruined.

[Aksannyi]

I quite like it. I think her feet are a bit huge but it's a cute pose nonetheless.

When I'm trying to draw characters, I'll use Altana Viewer and pose them the way I want so that I can use that as a model. So if you enjoy doing fanart, might be something you'd want to get if you don't already have it.

[ruffrydasean]

Better than anything I can do

[Armando]

Not too shabby. Tons of room for improvement but it doesn't look bad.

The anatomy is, for the most part, technically fine. The calf on her left leg is too round (unlike the right calf, which curves inwards roughly halfway down like one would expect.) The way you draw the lips looks odd; the line where the lips meet looks too much like an M, and it's kind of dividing her lips into equal thirds. For most people, that line is a lot more subtle, and the peak at the middle takes up a much smaller portion of the lips' length.

The pose looks fine at first glance, but if you think about it, it's kind of awkward with the way her knees are only slightly bent. I'm guessing she's posing, but the pose doesn't feel like it has much life to it. It's kind of hard to put into words. Let's just say I look at it and I don't really get anything out of it. Also, the folds behind the knee on the right leg clash with it pretty harshly. The leg is shown almost completely sideways, but the folds are drawn parallel to the screen (which would make it the side of the leg rather than being behind the knee.)

Like Feba said, the proportions don't exactly scream out "Elvaan" either. It's too...average. Needs to be taller, with emphasis on slenderness, killer legs, and a tall neck. You gotta exaggerate a little bit, put emphasis on the most noteworthy qualities. It's not something that happens overnight but you want her curves to be distinct - you can look at 'em and say "that's my character," and someone else can look at it and say "you drew that, right?" It feels kind of generic right now. Also, it seems you're trying to go for realism rather than cartoony proportions, anyways, so it would do you good to get used to drawing taller characters with lower head-to-body ratios either way.

The biggest problem is definitely the coloring. This is natural, since Photoshop isn't exactly intuitive for this kind of thing, and it takes some research and practice to get it down. I'm no Photoshop wizard, myself. But the dodge/burn tool method is crude, yields poor results, and drags down the drawing by making it look amateurish. The coloring comes out looking awkward - the darkest shadows look too black, the highlights look too white, the boundaries are too round and blurry. Everything comes out with the same generic texture; you painted the boots as if they were somewhat latexy, but the highlights on them aren't sharp like you'd expect. For these same reasons, the hair looks terribly awkward, like it's made out of the same stuff as her clothes and skin. In short, it's not a very good painting method.

Rather than relying on the automated blackening or whitening of colors and the blurry-edged brushes of the dodge/burn tools, try laying down solid regions of a deeper (not blacker) or lighter shade of the colors, like in my avatar. You probably want to do soft shading rather than clean-cut cel shading; instead of just one darker/lighter well-defined region of shade/light, try having 3-5 of these regions kind of overlapping, and then smoothing them out with blur tool or some other method I may not be aware of. It'll give much more natural-looking results. Also, the boundaries between dark/light regions shouldn't be so thick (for example, the whitest regions of the boots.) The border should be smooth, but neater and well-defined. Again, look at my avatar - the shading on her face is has pretty neat boundaries, but the boundary has a slight softness to it, without degenerating into a thick and blurry gradient. Doing the hair tends to be a whole 'nother ball game, though, and everyone has a different method and style they prefer.

My advice is kind of generic, I know. It's probably better to just look up some tutorials. Maybe you could start here, it's a site I bookmarked quite a while ago. If not, just look for artwork, pick out the ones that strike you the most and pay attention to the way it's colored and shaded.

[Clever Ninja]

Aside from the already mentioned fact that it looks more like a Hume/Elvaan half breed, its a great pic imo.

Draw me another one, this time only with the hat <_<.

[Kailea]

yeah really nice for a first attempt ^.^

[Yellow Mage]

If, as an artist, you ever think you are doing it right, then you are doing it wrong. That's the only one certain piece of advice I can give to you.

Aside from that and everything else that everyone else has said criticism-wise, I think the breasts are off. Now, this puts me in an awkward position in how I sound, but I honestly can not think of anything else that has already said.

Still, nice work. Not bad for a first try, for sure.

[TheGrandMom]

Originally Posted by Armando

Like Feba said, the proportions don't exactly scream out "Elvaan" either. It's too...average. Needs to be taller, with emphasis on slenderness, killer legs, and a tall neck.

I disagree about the neck. The neck is barely visible in that pose but if you compare the line of the shoulder to the chin, you can see that the neck is infact quite long. It's just that the outfit hampers the view of the neck. Also, elvaans do come in small sizes. I have an elvaan female that is the short version and she would look about that height. I don't understand the slender comment because she looks plenty slender to me. It's proportionate to her height, so it looks fine. I think the legs don't look as long as you'd like because of the leggings that bag at the knees. If the leggings had been tight and smooth, it would make the legs appear to be longer. But again you run into the point of making the legs proportionate to the height and if the legs were extended then you may have to adjust the torso also depending on how much length was added. That might change what the artist was looking for and thats possibly an elvaan of small stature.

[fallenintoshadows]

Thank you all for your criticism, I will take it all on board. I will definitely try and do the shading differently to try and make it look better and maybe just play around with different ways of doing it and maybe try sketching an elvaan body(or whatever race I want to draw) from model viewer to get the right body figure before possibly trying a completely new pose XD I'm still learning at photoshop but I really hope I'm getting better >w< When I do something else I will post it so you guys can hopefully compare and see an improvement ^-^

[Darkhound]

WoW

How did you do it??
Can i get one for my summoner?

[Balfree]

Like some people have said: proportions are a bit off.

The only thing that really bothers me though... are her lips, they should be simplified, right now they stand out so much it looks like she's holding her breath, also they should probably be a bit lower and a bit more the the right. As a matter of fact i think shes twisting her head back a little too much, it looks like shes uncomfortable and that her lips are so visible and contrasting just helps to further accentuate her awkward position, im pretty sure she has already gone past the "ouch" part with that neck twist :p