Want advice / critique on your art?

[Arkillian]

There has been interest in a critique thread here so I thought I'd start one.


What this thread is for:-

• You can post a picture, and ask for help on certain specific aspects of it. If I or another artist can give advice, we will
• If you have an art question on techniques or materials to buy etc... you can ask it here and hopefully someone can help you
• If you have come up to a wall with art and don't know how to get better at something generally, you can link a few pictures in your gallery as an example and get a more generalized critique.

The hope for this thread is that those that wish to improve with art can with the friendly advice of others. This is open for any artist to help out with advice. I have a thread like this on another forum, and it's REALLY cool to see artists improve over time.

What this thread is NOT for:-

• Back pats. Back pats are basically when the artist only wants positive feedback- not constructive ones. To improve with art, you need to know where you have flaws and how to fix them. You have your own art threads for back pats.
• Negative feedback. This I think might be a forum rule, but remember guys, this is a constructive critique forum, not a slaughter house. Artists have feelings. Any negative comment given to an artist here MUST follow a reason and if you can, how to fix it.  Preferably both. The tone you say it in also makes a difference too. This is the number 1 reason that people prefer to get better at art on their own even though it's a SLOW process.
• Getting angry at critiques. DON'T- please. This is the number 1 reason artists wont help artists is cause of that one person that blew up at them for that 1 hour critique they typed out. Artists WILL point out errors that you're going to put down to 'your style'. Please listen even if you prefer it your way. What they have to say is important to them and they only want to help. This thread will quickly go cold if advice is ignored cause the artists doesn't like it. All opinions are valid.

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So now that we have this in play, I invite you all to post! Please observe this thread's rules, and please try not to bombard the forum with requests for critique.

Lastly, I donno about you guys, but I'll critique anything in this thread. Just make sure that it's safe for work. If you have mature art, please private message people directly.

Please note- I am a semi realism artist. I have trouble critiquing manga art styles, and I can't draw ponies yet. I have many limitations on this site, but I'll try my best

[Lina]

sounds good keep the art coming, guys.

[IIya]

  how awesome!! How about my latest finished piece?

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Looking at it now I can see the legs are uneven. And I shaded it weird. One thing I know I'm bad about is not using proper shading 

Can't wait to hear your crit! 

[Arkillian]

What were you wanting critique about? I don't know what you're having issues with here

[IIya]

What were you wanting critique about? I don't know what you're having issues with here

Anything? Does anything seem off? Bug you? IDK.

[ZennaBug]

I think this is a fabulous idea!! 

One thing I really struggle with is shading with digital art.  I think I probably just don't do enough of it, but if anyone has tips, I would gladly take them!
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[Arkillian]

Ah shading Well, the big thing with shading is a light source. Right now the 3D effect on your pony is a sort of slightly lifted or embossed look cause there's only a tiny amount of shading. There's many ways of doing colour. The easiest is to use black on the layer above and using a filter to do the rest (which isn't dynamic). Another option is since you have large areas of one colour is to only fill the area of one colour with a darker but less saturated version of the colour. That seems to keep the luminosity better, and gives you the option of deciding what colour you want. In reality, the shadow is the complimentary colour (the colour on the opposite end of the colour spectrum, like yellow versus purple, and blue versus orange. This is the same as looking at a negative of a colour ), but this only works if you have a highlight colour. If you highlight something yellow, you need to give it a shadow with a touch of purple in it for example. This doesn't work so well with pony art though cause it relies on the whole picture being coloured the same way, and it can take away from the colour VERY easily if you do it wrong. Best to experiment if you use this method to see what works and be prepared for some bad results. Atleast, if you're like me and no good at colour anyways One last method my friend uses- it's tricky to me, but you map out one colour's worth of shading in grey scale, then use a gradient map on it. That's a photoshop trick. I can link the tutorial if you're interest.


Lastly, you want to learn WHERE to shade. It's no good having pretty colouring if your grounding is bad for shading. IF you understand why you shade like you do, it'll be much more 3D and realistic. For this, I'm going to suggest you do something that'll seem REALLY mundane, but do a bit of practice with shading. Grab a pencil, or a tablet pen (what ever is most comfortable for you to use), and start practicing doing lighting effects for Cylinders, spheres, cones, and cubes. See what the shapes do when light hits them. They're also really good to practice colour with lighting on. These basic shapes are the basis of all art- specially toon art since it's so simplified. Once you master the lighting on these basic shapes, start looking for them in your art. Light the head is a sphere, the the horn is a cone, the legs are cylinders, and well... ponies don't generally have cubes, but those exist too


Lighting effects are alot easier to worry about in grey scale, so practice with that first. Colour has all sorts of interfering elements in it like hue, saturation and lumination. Grey scale (Or monochromatic )just has lumination. The difficult thing with colour shading is getting a range of lumination in the picture amongst the hues. A picture may look like it's well lit, but two colours with similar lumination wont pop like two colours with different illumination. You can turn art into greyscale in most programs. If it looks like it has a light source and variation in grey scale it's generally a winner. Exceptions to this not included (sometimes you want there to be no definition.)


I hope that helps

[ZennaBug]

Thank you    I've done the circle and cylinder shading many times, but I always struggle with colored images (especially digital ones).  I should practice that.  The shadows on that one are just black with the transparency turned down.  I'll have to try using colors that are opposite on the color wheel, I've never thought of that!  I'd love to see your friend's tutorial, I know that a lot of us are always looking for new shading tips!

[Arkillian]

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Her DA name is Yuni. She has a very soft and dewy style.


The key thing to remember though is it doesn't matter how pretty your colours are. You'll always be as good as your weakest skill, and if that is your lineart, your form, your ability to shade... any of these, your artwork will just have pretty colours and not actually be as good as it could be. I encourage all artists to work on their weaknesses. You can only get better. Lineart use to be my weakness, and I since practise using variation in my lines and with different brands of pens, and it didn't take too long before I was starting to become known for my linearts- the one skill that I was really weak with. The same happened with me drawing men. When I first started out my men were terrible. I focused my art on men, and suddenly I drew a guy 10 times better than I drew a girl.


And if I can do it, ANYONE can do it. I'm litterally half blind. If you 20/20 people can't do better than me with practise then something is wrong with the world

[ZennaBug]

That's a fascinating tutorial, I may try it It's certainly waaay different than the way I shade!  But it's also way prettier.  Thanks!

[Arkillian]

I like it because it allows for dynamic colouring cause you don't have to have a linear colour through out. You can change the colour as much as you want, and you also work with grey scale, so you're pretty much guaranteed a good variation of colour. It's fiddly though. It's an option. I also know some lineart preparations you can do to not get furry edges on your highres. My friend Fablespinner told me that you can threshold your lineart to pure black, then lock the transparency of the layer. With that, you can colour over your lineart. She doesn't have a tutorial to link that. http://www.sitepoint.com/photoshop-tip-locking-transparent-pixels/ <- here's where to find the lock transparency in photoshop.

[ZennaBug]

Ooh, that's a fun tip too!    I still do most of my art traditionally, so I love new tricks for photoshop

[Arkillian]

Unless you digitally colour, this wont help you much. Traditional suffers heavily through the whole digital process. I have learnt the hard way.

[rayechu]

Oooooo, me me me! I honestly think a problem on this board is that we are reluctant to critique. I mean I don't want my picture to get trashed, but I would like practical advice on making it better.

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Let's do starlight cause she's one of my oldest things. I feel like often my characters look "flat". I'm thinking maybe the blue pencil technique at the sketch stage might help me, but I'm not sure. Anything in general that you notice. Oh Also I never know what to do with backgrounds! I like ponies in nature, but I'm not really sure what to do with it!
 

[Arkillian]

Yeah- that's why I was reluctant to start this thread MLP doesn't feel like the area of fandom where it feels right to be negative in any way. There is some room for it though.


For future note- preferences is for NEW art not old. Should I update the first post with that? If I critique you on art you've since improved on, then that's not much help, right?

Let's do starlight cause she's one of my oldest things. I feel like often my characters look "flat".

Check out my previous critique for Zennabug for this. Yours is less of an issue because you have larger areas of shading, but you don't have a light source... or 1 light source. Sometimes drawing a circle for where the light source is helps. Remember that if light hits something, the other side will be a shadow. Like with the neck. You can have 2 light sources, but this has to be consistent. I'd suggest looking at photos of an actual horse for hints on lighting. She where the light hits the horse, how it's coat glosses in the light, and where it has certain shaped shadows.

I'm thinking maybe the blue pencil technique at the sketch stage might help me, but I'm not sure.

You mean photocopy blue pencil? Some people swear by them. They only work if you scan them as black and white, and even then, you need a light hand to use them- unlike my monkey grip I don't know what use you mean otherwise. Do you just mean as a blue pencil? That's not their intended use, but whatever works, right? They're a harder pencil than coloured pencils are so I can see the appeal.

Anything in general that you notice

I'd rather not actually. See, one thing I learnt from my friend Nani, my sorce of all godly art advice, is that art is made to fit a purpose. If the purpose is to put a smile on someone's face then it doesn't have to be fleshed out. If you want a comic, you need more panels and a certain page size. IF it's a teeshirt design you need to consider the amount of colours and if it's something someone would wear, if you want it to be a work of art you need to consider your mediums, and layouts, composition of the image in general (everything generally). What you have here looks like it was meant to bring a smile to someone's face. It's made that purpose well. If you wish to as specific things you can do to improve it, I'll answer, but as far as I can tell, this picture is doing what you want it to do. It doesn't have to have a background. Having a shadow underneath it helps, but don't stress over small stuff. If you feel that you have come to a rut then just try something new. Challenge yourself. Don't make a sweet picture into something it doesn't need to be. Everything in art should have a purpose, even if it' sa small one. Backgrounds are needed when it's use is right.

Oh Also I never know what to do with backgrounds! I like ponies in nature, but I'm not really sure what to do with it!

Go find references on the net. ANYTHING you need inspiration for? The net. It doesn't make you less of an artist if you do that. If you take from an artist  of any sort you should credit the source by linking it. That's the only catch. There's nothing I can advise on that till I see it in action. Just try it. You'll be surprised what determination and a reference can do.


Remember the key- learn correctly. If you pretend you know what something looks like all the time, you'll likely never fully get it right. Learn it correctly and the process is faster, and stronger