HOME | DD
HyperactiveMothMan — Death Is Nothing
Published: 2009-04-16 03:59:33 +0000 UTC; Views: 514; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 12
Redirect to original
Description
...compared to what she'll do if you cross her...drew a pic of Jomeiah with a scythe and so that inspired this.
Related content
Comments: 18
I quite fancied writing a critique for you. I've been critiquing a lot of =Dreyfus2006 's arts, so it's always good for a change. OK, let's get down to business.
OK, now let's first start with the background. It is done really well, and the colouring is not too vibrant or overpowering. However, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it does look slightly bleak. Some slight colouring would be nice, like perhaps a hint of dark blue or purple in the sky. Normally, I'd suggest not to sharpen things that are in the background, but the lightning would look a lot more crackly if the lines were sharpened, and perhaps adding a light blue to the colour would make it look electrifying.
Moving on now! The way you've presented Jomeiah is great, and her stance is well balanced and looks good. The trouble is... I think her hands don't look right with the way she's holding the scythe. You can rectify this with perhaps having someone hold like a long stick or broom or something while standing in the same or a similar stance. You could then take a photo and use it as reference. Another thing is the extremity of shading. When lightning flashes, things tend to have more extreme differences between lit and shaded areas. I can probably understand the less obvious difference to some degree, but it would be nice to have more of a contrast between lit and shaded. Let's move on a bit, and let's have a look at Jomeiah's head. First of all, her expression looks good, but you're missing some vital parts. For instance, she doesn't have a nose or eyebrows. Whilst this is probably your style, it doesn't look 'right'. Second, her forehead seems to high and her head profile seems too thin. You could try making the head slightly more rounded to rectify this. And, just to end on a high(er) note, her shadow is well placed, but is slightly too sharp. The edges could be blurred sightly to rectify this.
As with all critiques, I like to make a quick breakdown of everything I've covered in a short, sweet summary, so here we go! e.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="15" height="15" alt="
Summarye.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="10" height="10" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="10" height="10" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="10" height="10" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="10" height="10" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="10" height="10" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="10" height="10" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="10" height="10" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="10" height="10" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/b/b… " width="10" height="10" alt="
It's a good piece, and with a bit of work, it can be a great piece. e.deviantart.com/emoticons/s/s… " width="15" height="15" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/a/a… " width="19" height="19" alt="
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
Thanks for the critique.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Reading critiques is almost as fun as getting them!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Wow OMG it so amazing I love how there a Storm going on in the background . and her look just is pure amazing and the way she is standing holding that axe . she saying don't mess with me or you will pay the price . this is the best out of the best
and i love this drawing so much . I love how you showed her with one fang out . so cool. and her glowing red eyes . i love the color of her camo outfit she got . it rocks rocks rock . i love the ground she on . this whole drawing is pure amazing
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Okay, dearest friend, let's get started.
Your strongest skills lie in your ability to produce literature; however, over these past couple of years you've been beginning to develop as an artist. Probably the strongest artistic skill you've developed is your capability to plot a picture out and make that mental image a reality. Despite them typically being the tallest mountain to cross for most artists, your best ability is your ability to visualize and then draw a wide variety of poses, some that would frustrate more skilled artists.
You've captured the mood of the picture skillfully in that regard. There stands Jomeiah, ready for anything that dares challenge her feminine might. You can see her watching some unknown creature apprehensively, and the shading, though not the best you could have done, clearly shows us that her arms are curved back, preparing to swing if she must.
But of course, critiques exist to tell you what you should improve upon as well as what you've done right. So let's get to the improvement.
Let's start with the simple things, mere mistakes in the drawing stage. Take a look at her thumbs. The left thumb works alright; you can see it is coming from further down the palm than the fingers are, displaying its characteristic of being "opposable." Now let's look at the right hand. You have the thumb on the correct side of the hand (I positioned my hands like that just to make sure), however if you compare it to your own hand you will notice a mildly important mistake. The human hand, if you notice, has a gap between where the fingers start and where the thumb starts. This part of the palm is missing from Jomeiah's right hand. This gives her thumb the appearance that it is bending in a very odd way. You can improve this by making the thumb far less visible; the viewer's far left end of where her index finger connects with the rest of the hand should then make an almost complete vertical drop to the wrist (just angle it slightly to the viewer's right). Remove most of the thumb to the left of this line, especially the parts farthest away from the palm. That should improve things. e.deviantart.com/emoticons/s/s… " width="15" height="15" alt="
Perspective-wise, take a look at her feet. I understand how she's positioning her feet; however, the way it is drawn can confuse the viewer. The left foot dips too far towards the bottom of the picture; this dip contradicts the shadows as well as the appearance of the right foot, which you cannot see the top of at all. Fixing this is easy; you just have to either change our view of her right foot so that we can see the top, or shorten and reposition angle we see her left foot at so that it agrees with the right foot. If you do the latter, then without any shading it should look almost identical to the right foot. It is through shading that you'd give it the depth you want. As it is, this inconsistency in her feet gives her otherwise brilliant pose a major and awkward flaw.
On the note of shading, take a look at how you did it. There's something missing, something that could add quite a bit more depth to your picture. Everything black, if you notice, has not been shaded at all. Considering the lightning in the background, this lack of shading creates dissonance in the picture and confuses the viewer's perception. I know what you're thinking. "It's black! It can't be any darker!" That's why I generally use dark greys for my blacks; however, if you prefer your way there's a quick solution. If you put anything black in front of a light, you'll see that it gets brighter FAST. In situations such as a flash of lightning, do the opposite of shading. Shade the blacks with dark grays in the areas where they are illuminated as opposed to in shadow.
While we're on the topic of shading, I'd recommend making the parts of Jomeiah's body that are furthest away from the lightning darker than the ones closer. For example, have her hair be brighter than, say, her hands. This will massively improve the depth of the picture, giving a sense of how close or how far away particular parts of her are. Her hair as it is right now is impossible to tell if it's brushing against her skin of if it's hanging around behind her.
Alright. Take a moment to rest your eyes; that was a lot to take in, wasn't it? The worst of it is about to come. Prepared? I'm sure you can handle it. It's pretty important, though, so I do hope you'll take the following advice seriously.
You've come a long way as an artist since when I convinced you to put some of your art on deviantART a couple of years ago. But you are now approaching a plateau in your abilities; they are slowing their improvement and are starting to level out. There's a major obstacle in the way of improving your artwork to the next level, and it's one that you've fought and griped and denied and ignored and overlooked this entire time. It's one that you hate to consider, and one that you'll find any excuse to avoid. You've declared it impossible for you to accomplish. You've said it just is not a part of your style, as if your style is something that will never change or improve from Day 1. You've pouted, you've screamed, but you've come to the point where it's time you looked it in the eye and finally overcome it.
If you're going to get any better, at least at a constant rate, you're going to have to start looking at anatomy. Yes, you heard me. You've insisted on keeping your same style of drawing humanoids since the day your joined deviantART, but you're ready to triumph over your fear now. There are many things about anatomy that you could improve on; a lot of those can arguably be considered stylistic, though, and so I won't press them now (such as number of fingers, thickness of limbs, etc.). However, these days whenever I look at your art I always think the same thing. "If there's one thing she could do that would radically improve her art, it's improve her faces." Not expressions; you're still improving them at a good steady rate. I'm talking about head shapes, probably most importantly NOSES.
If you look at Jomeiah, there's something preventing her from looking dangerous, a figure to be avoided. It's her head. I hate to be frank, but it looks like an plastic Easter egg. The shading only helps to reinforce that remark. It's shaded as if it really were round all the way around like an egg. I'm not saying you have to go realistic; I'm saying it's time that you quit avoiding it and start trying to improve your human heads.
The first thing I'd recommend for your next picture is to try including noses; even if they are just legless triangles, give her something between the eyes and mouth. I'm not even saying it has to be big; it could be small, like in Japanese art. And even if you think it looks bad, even if you regret ever listening to me, keep doing it on every human head you draw. With every attempt, you'll figure out how to incorporate it into your style more and more, until it isn't a big scary concept to be avoided anymore.
Afterwards you could always try ears and incorporating the shape of the skull and stuff, but I understand that at least in Jomeiah's case ears aren't necessary and your style isn't going to die any time soon from missing ears or cheeks. What I would recommend, though, is to flatten the top of the head. Human heads are pointy on the bottom, but are round--almost flat--on top. By lowering that peak she has for a scalp, you'll also reduce the size of the forehead and give her hair a more natural look.
That's all I have to critique. e.deviantart.com/emoticons/s/s… " width="15" height="15" alt="
e.deviantart.com/emoticons/s/s… " width="15" height="15" alt="
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Actually I did shade the black, it's just too dark to see it. XD Though you may be right about the braid. I may have forgotten to shade it. Can't tell by looking at it though. XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
There, maybe that will encourage you to write me a critique sooner or later.
Critiquing is nice, but comments let me give my opinion. And my opinion is... You seriously should consider giving her different boots. They look really corny. And I'm not trying to manipulate you with psychological mind tricks this time.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
If I can find a way to make her boots more sexy, I will. XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
that is awesome, even the backgrounds amasing
nice job
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
THanks. And thanks for the fave.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Yayz! Ai got teh mention!
Mind you, that's awesome. That rocks. You done this real well. So faved.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1