Well, I've been a bit off, mainly doing some Sacred Mountain Training, and while I'm not yet ready to show some recent stuff, I would love to sprinkle a bit of healthy criticism over Barbarossa's piece. Right now.
@Barbarossa TSG
It's awesome to have you asking for it, because usually we're too focused on 'our' style and what we think is right, at least to be able to see which stuff needs some improvement. In this specific case, if you think the drawing deserves overhauling (I would agree) then it would be wise to not advance any further into background territory and keep yourself on this piece until you're fed up. It's a delightful chance of improvement, and we'll soon see why. English is not my first language, so I hope you all bear with this.
Case in hand (and we'll speak a bit about hands), my bullet points:
Rhenbel's feet are the most troubling spots, unless you're planning it to be on her toes, a quite uncomfortable standing. Ignore the rest of her body for a minute, and compare the distance between the base of the heels and the base of her toes, you might notice that it looks like she's being seen in a sort-of-upper angle, but the rest of the drawing says otherwise. If you want to keep her overall appearance I would suggest to set some imaginary ground line for her to stand in, if both heels and the staff comply to the line (given the staff is being put aside and not in front of her) then it's just fine.
I hope you excuse me, because it clearly wasn't your intention and I don't want to be a jerk, but her skirt looks rather unsettling to me, like a themed bachelor party apron with a revealing backside. Well, I admit that the folds at the end look great, but they look like better suited for a cloak or cape seen from the back, the object doesn't seem to surround her legs judging how it widens at her right side (our left) and, conversely, the lack of an inner side that wouldn't allow her staff to show up where the skirt folds. If her skirt is flowing thanks to the magic staff (not advisable, I'll soon explain why) or because of the wind, then it would kind of stick to the side facing the source, in this case the left side, and her legs would be a bit more visible right there, at least their silouette.
This is tricky and I'll come to it later, when I get to the neck, but although you understand how color matches in an aesthetical and pleasant fashion you first need to see how light operates on a surface. That's one of the things I usually praise from Jopax
because he sets a light point and from there shading goes on. I would think for a minute that you were intuitively going for an way overhead lightsource, left to her and right to us, judging by how the shading goes on at the end of the skirt. Yet, it does seem wrong, or at least flipped, right below the pouch. Those black folding lines that criss-cross the skirt
can and will be considered shading, as long as you use other subtle means to convey lightning. Same goes for the blouse, her skin, the hair and well, just about anything you use as a outline will stick out if it's paired with lighter hues. If you're going for a stylistical choice and use the outline, well, I wouldn't mind, but the overall appearance should match that choice as well.
In this case, having MSPaint still allows you to work with layers, but in the same way that you might use layers while drawing with pencil over paper. If you use something a luminous or desaturated hue in lieu of a soft pencil stroke to do the outline then it will be easier to add relevant shading afterwards, overwriting the lighter and unobstrusive outlines. Some character designers use red and blue pencils to do this, mainly to define where lightning and shades will be, but with some practice you'll find what suits your needs.
Also, Rhenbel's boots have their tips shining at opposite sides.
Yes, they're not visible right now but that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. While they're not subjected to the same anatomical racism* against hands, they're usually covered with clothes so we don't feel uneasy drawing them for whatever reason. While we don't have any real elves at hand to be accurate enough, we still can use ourselves to compare some proportions while acting out the pose and possible range of movements of our character. Barbarossa, please stand up for a minute, put your hands down against your thighs and notice their reach. Now, try to draw a dotted angle between Rhenbel's left hand and her own left thigh, and see where it goes. I already made it in my mind, and saw that her arms are larger than expected, but it's relevant to do it yourself and understand how it works. When legs are absent from the initial design it's hard to convey, that's why I always draw some stick figures first, and clothing goes down low in the list when drawing a character. We're all neverending trainees at the Guild.
Everything above applies as well to her hands, and I would advice to practice them, without bodies first, before going full-armed. They might seem daunting but are nothing but cilinders attached to a shovel-like square. Keep this in mind, everything in our body has a simpler, low-poly way of being represented and hands are no exception, although they require a lot of care, like faces (going there in a minute!) because of their expressive nature. thighs, hips, collarbones and else are not that important given the limited range of features and movement, but although you can't move your sternum anywhere it's always handy to know where it is and how does it work. Those rings, are they facing their jewels inwards? With bigger hands and fingers they might be a bit more noticeable, if you want them to be there.
Elves are understood as lithe beings, so you could adjust those hands to resemble that. Down low I'll post a handy chart of references to help you with it.
Notice where Rhenbel's shoulders begin, and taking into account that they shouldn't be disjointed from the thorax, then it would be safe to say that her back is wide for both elven and women standards. Shoulders
aren't a physical feature on their own, like a separate bone or something, rather being the place where the clavicle ends and the arm begins; so a guy or girl with a wide chest might appear to have a square frame, while a thin one will feature these 'hanging' shoulders, all thanks to the trapezius muscle. It all has a physical explanation, so try it and see how it feels.
Here's what I wanted to say about shading regarding this: those two converging lines that form a "v" on the neck are the sternocleidomastoids, and they reach their 'vanishing point' where the neck ends and the head begins, almost a few fingers below the ear. In this case they dissappear earlier, and right there the neck keeps on getting thinner. Necks are just tubular, straight structures, and the bulging mound that makes them appear to broaden is the trapezius, again. Because of this muscle our arms don't just fall apart from their weight, and it is a tent of sorts (hence the name) that ends roughly in the opposite side of the head where the jaw begins. This is where Urist McScoopbeard's point about the long neck comes into play.
Aside from everything said that applies here just the same, it doesn't seem to match the elven look. You don't need to play a stereotype, in any case, and draw an elf of your own, but in the same way make sure their features are matching.
Got to say, there's something mesmerizing about her eyes and the choice for their hue, that's an overall plus,
BUT those little white dots at the height of her pupils, understood as light reflections, make her look a bit derpy (is that the word?). Maybe you don't want to mess at all with the staff as a really strong light source, so in the best of all possible worlds those white dots would be rather green and "both" pointing downside right from our point of view, with different angles depending on how far they are from that source.
So, you got 99 problems, and that staff ain't one of them.
Just kidding, hope you take this post with some humor and good salt. I took my time to explain all of that because, well, this is the +Engravers Guild+ and there is no better way to progress than to draw a lot and receive feedback. It might be a sizeable amount of text, all of it well meant.
By the way, you already should see what isn't right with both staff and pouch, so I wont fall over them, but all in all I love the basic color scheme, the addition of more green should give it more contrast and richness.
*For reference about hand racism and what does that mean, if anything at all, these delightful posts by wierd might shed some light on the subject.
That just means that you should just draw more hands. Nothing but hands.
Hands arent hard, despite what people may state to the contrary. Hands are just shapes, like any other. If you have difficulty with a certain kind of shape, then practice is what is called for.
Try making an abstract form out of NOTHING BUT hands! A certain scene from a certain horrible B movie comes to mind in fact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQUeK7nYxBQ (2:14)
Manny Mauel would like to remind everyone that
Keep that in mind the next time you callously decide to be racist against hands everywhere by crudely cutting them out of the picture!
I'm taking the advice as well! Will show something before the end of the week.
EDIT: I completely forgot the references, might be advisable to add more in the future. They're just baselines, but knowing them might just allow you to play with some of those features.
- The distance between the tip of the middle finger and the wrist of a hand is the same distance between the base of the jaw and the upper end of the forehead, read: the size of the face.
- The foot of a human (from the read end of the heel to the tip of the first, broader finger) has an equal size to that of the forearm of that same human.
- The width of a mature woman's hip is bigger in a small extent to the width of her shouders. It happens inversely in men.
- Ideally, if you draw a line that goes from the outer end of a nostril to the outermost end of a brow, then you should get a 45° angle and also pass across the outer end of the eye.
- Eyeballs are just that, spheres enveloped in lids. Between both eyeballs there's a third, equally large eyeball of distance.
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Topic: +The Engravers Guild+ (Read 384258 times)