[Maxmike]

I apologize for any loss of sight due to the ugly drawing at the bottom of this post, please feel free to hit up whatever points you find need fixing.

His name is Verade. He has magical abilities that allow him to move objects with his mind and summon lightning bolts from the sky, but he is currently in a pretty bad emotional state. He couldn't help his girlfriend when she needed him most. She got tangled in the death creep vines facefirst in a puddle in the forest on a walk. By the time Verade's telecenetic powers pulled her from the vine she had already inhaled too much water, and her neck was gashed open on one of the vine's deadly spikes. Currently he stands in the forest gathering clouds for a lightning strike on the vines.

[Maxmike]

I don't want, or mean to sound like a nag, or an obnoxious newb, but If I could get some input that would be cool. If not I can live with it, this only took me five hours, and is by no means what I would consider a complete or finished picture. Anyhow, comments are welcomed and appreciated. Just thought I'd give this one bump before it falls to the bottom of the messages. If you feel nothing towards it then just let this topic fall, I don't want forced comments, but I do want to know exactly where its messed up, I think its centered around the lips, but I can't place a finger on what is wrong. Something is...

[BloodStone]

I suppose I'll help, since no one else has.
Personally, I think this character should look a little older, and as though he has fought for quite some time. The way you have him drawn now, it looks as though he was a teenager who ran away from a battle. Also, mens tears rarely fall, their eyes just water (I think I read somewhere that this was caused by a specific hormone). I'm not great with anatomy, but what you've got seems pretty good. I'll show you a bit of what I mean about the looks:



I think your lines could be a little smoother and less jaggedy (Is that even a word?). Also, be sure to use layers! It helps rid your drawings of the white area around the character. If you're working from a pencil sketch and need help with that, just ask. Finally, the shading looks a tad flat. Push those values, as my art teachers would say!

On a good note, I love the clouds. It definitely looks gloomy! The rain also looks pretty sweet.

[tek9z]

what bloodstone said.
and good colorchoice/rendering.
but composition wise you could tell much more!
now its'nt very clear that he's gathering clouds for a lightning strike.
-he's just standing there, crying in bad weather conditions.
you should show more concentration on his face
and more surroundings to make it clear it is him who summons the skies.
made a -not so good- redraw over here

[ June 02, 2002: Message edited by: tek9z ]

[BloodStone]

He could be on his knees with his head bowed, in the rain. Well, actually, that's sort of cliche.

[Maxmike]

Hehe, thank you. All of you. I have learned something from this, I have to definitly plan out a picture first. I originally didn't have any concept in mind, which is why the whole theme seems pretty shotty. I think that's the focal point of my anguish on this piece.

As for the white around his hair, I had 17 layers in total, and didn't do it in pencil first (a sure fire sign for lower quality, seeing as my favourite median is pencil, and the wacom just doesn't give me the feel... when I draw like I do with a pencil, normally generating smooth and flowing lines, it makes hard, sketchy looking lines). "what's your excuse for the white around his hair then!?" you ask, well, mainly its a lack of having noticed it before I sent it out. the reason I have the white there at all is so that the other colors appear properly (because of my use of overlay and such, it needs a white background to appear properly.) I guess I didn't clean it up near the head as much as I would like. So, thank's for bringing those to my attention, I shall clean that up (it shouldn't be too hard)

I'll keep cleaner lines in mind next time also. When you talk about "pushing those values" I got that from my art teacher quite a bit, I'm working on it most definitly, and again, I have complete control over the values (seeing as I have 3 shading layers and 3 skin layers) so I think I will make it a bit more contrasty . Again, thanks for the re-draws on creative composition. I am trying to stay away from cliches, but that would probably be a better position.

My main purpose for this was to get back in the drawing groove, this is my first pic in four months! *sigh* its been took long, so that's why everything seems a bit rusty.

And again, thanks, your comments definitly helped.

And yeah, I've been working on my clouds