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[Arx]

It bears a more than passing resemblance to the subject, I think. If people can point out issues (preferably ones that aren't too likely to just be the subject looking odd (I keep getting caught by reality being unrealistic)), I'd greatly appreciate it.

Arx, push your contrasts more. Make the darkest parts darker to stand out more from the light parts and the somewhat dark parts. I tend to do the same thing in non-digital media. My art teacher in high school (took her classes for all 4 years) was always telling me the same thing, push your contrasts, everything blurs together from smudging and a lack of contrast, don't do that, push your dark values to stand out more, etc etc.

That's about 40% the scanner washing it out. I do tend to not make the contrasts sharp enough though, you're right, and I've been constantly telling myself that whilst drawing the most recent few pieces.

[Jopax]

@Allee, sure thing, just shoot me a PM whenever you want to discuss it further.
@Shook, thanks bro, and hopefully one day you will (nice dawg btw)
@Spess, uh, thanks, it's always nice to see people geek out over something I've made, kinda validates all the effort ^^
@Arx, aside from stronger contrasts (tho this could be a lighting thing, we don't know how the original looked) pay attention to the shapes and planes of the face. By this I mean that the face can be generally divided into flat geometric shapes so it's easier to work with lights and perspective before smoothing it all out nicely. In your piece for example the area around the eyes seems off. Now this is partly perspective and partly light not showing the shape of the face properly. This makes his head look kinda too squarey and distorted because if he's at this angle to us, we wouldn't see that much of the side of his head.
This is really hard to explain properly with just words XD
Do you have the reference you used for this? It's much easier to compare with that and figure out what's wrong.

[Arx]

Yup.

Spoiler: Here. (click to show/hide)

Having expunged the possibly identifying data...

I get what you're saying about the planes and perspective, yeah, that makes sense.

[Jopax]

See, looking at that you can tell that the proportions are off in certain places but most importantly that the side of his face should be more visible because of the angle of the head (going against what I said earlier, basically, I thought you made his left (our right) side wrong, but as it turns out it's the other way around it seems and his head is at a different angle than I thought). You've esentially shrunk a portion of his head while doing the rest properly which makes it look odd.

When doing these it's best to sketch out an outline and get the proportions right first before committing to any details. This is most easily done if you observe the face itself and figure out some sort of landmark so to speak which you lay down and then figure out the proportions of the rest of the face according to that.

[Shook]

@Arx: Definitely looks like him! But prepare yourself, for here comes the NITPICKING TRAIN (do not open spoiler if you are very sensitive to criticism)

Spoiler: deep breath (click to show/hide)

All referring to your drawing:
- Right eye and brow too far away from nose
- Too much visible skin beneath eyebrows
- Eyes too open
- Nose too narrow and a tiny bit too short
- Lips too thin and narrow
- Iris and pupils need to be darker (pupils should be as black as you can possibly get them)
- Ear lacks a few details but you are forgiven because ears are fucking hard to draw
- Jaw is a smidge too square
- YOU DID NOT INCLUDE EVERY SINGLE STUBBLE HAIR I MEAN JEEGUS

You've done well though, make no mistake! Also, question: did you draw from the photo or did you sit and stare him in the face for as long as it took? I know the latter to be a very awkward experience. :v
oh yeah also thing i drew a while ago to illustrate the relative proportions of the main facial features that i was taught during arting course

also what jopax said

[Arx]

Thanks a ton guys!

@Jopax thanks for all the structural advice. I adjusted the shape of parts of his face, and it looks a bunch better. Next time will probably be easier bearing all that in mind.

@Shook that was super helpful. The little nitpicks are what I can't always pick up myself (it's exactly like debugging code!), so the extra pair of eyes is really handy. I initially was drawing him from life, but we both figured it would be easier from a picture, because classes.

Oh yeah and screw the stubble. No-one likes stubble.

[FArgHalfnr]

~snip

Yeah, I'm much more the kind of person that like to experiment than to study too, at least when drawing. Speaking of this, I tried something new for a commission I had also, OMGMYFIRTSCOMISSIONIMSOHAPPY:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm going to have to redo it because I was just supposed to draw a symbol but I kinda got overboard. Still, I'm very happy with how the stone ended up looking like.

[hops]

Somewhat off topic, but I noticed that good artists seem to be more prone to depression.

Therefore the sadder you are the better your art is?

[TD1]

More likely it is "The more intense the emotion, the better the art."

[hops]

See, I don't get that because my art quality takes a massive dip when I'm frustrated.

[FArgHalfnr]

Somewhat off topic, but I noticed that good artists seem to be more prone to depression.

Therefore the sadder you are the better your art is?

I noticed that too. I don't know if there is any scientific research on that, but I'm pretty sure that a correlation between the two was established. Maybe creative people tend to find real life dull in comparison to their imagination? I think artistic skills leads to sadness, not the other way around.

[Itnetlolor]

It seems like the less emotional I am, the better and/or more precise my work tends to get; as if I'm more like computing my illustrations, and engineering them, rather than just plain designing them. Could maybe explain some of the stability I find in some of my works, like the airships, or my sand castle. Basically, the more disconnected with life or the world I am, the better I work; the more human I become (emotions), the more I'm prone to rendering crap quality work. Maybe it implies I shouldn't have been born human, but rather... something beyond comprehension, or an AI, or something.

However, I do make decent art work, and I get depressed on a pretty regular basis. Real life, to me, sucks badly enough, I wish there was some way (theoretically, at least) to shatter the concept of Reality. Like, remove the square-cubed law of physics, and have giants roaming the earth without fault, and such; or common sense within societies actually being common. Or if gods really do exist, they can be comprehensible, or better yet, regardless if they're immortal or not, they CAN be killed (kinda like bacteria killing a creature, like an X-wing to a Death Star). On that note, I wonder how a god would taste when cooked? I would assume it would be mindblowing.

[hops]

Have you ever ate fried mice?

[Spehss _]

Somewhat off topic, but I noticed that good artists seem to be more prone to depression.

Therefore the sadder you are the better your art is?

Good artists may be perfectionists. Perfectionists can be prone to depression due to not meeting their own impossibly high expectations. They can regularly get negative thoughts and energy due to not being able to reach their goals and expectations. So maybe they're good at something but they can't realize that because they never meet their impossible expectations, and wind up focusing only on their negatives (ex: "I'm not good enough.") and ignore their positives (ex: "I'm not perfect but I am good at this."). Lots of negativity can result in depression.

I'm generalizing a hell of a lot in this statement but it gets the point across.

[H4zardZ1]

Spoiler: Whoa. (click to show/hide)

What happened to teh threants?