Constructive Criticism Please?

Posted 4 years, 11 months ago by Rileyisasimp

Hi! I've been getting back into drawing a lot and I've changed some things in my art, so I would like only the examples I post to be taken into consideration for the critique! A reminder, I'm aiming for a cutesy chibi style with regular proportions for the most part. 


13781950_rx3cPkq7SNB29HF.png

13747812_1lcxYipzuvdU3AR.png

faeryhne

You have a lovely style! I like your proportions and feel like you have a pretty good grasp on chibi anatomy. Although a lot of artistic choices are about style, hopefully these tips can help you still!

The main advice I think might be useful for you is to add extra details in your shading/highlighting. I feel like the stark white can be a little too strong on it's own, so maybe experiment with adding other softer highlights underneath the white. Another technique is to not use only straight, but instead create a sort of curved M- or W-shape and add that in with the lines (or use it instead of the lines) as a way to show off the shape of the hair (here's a good example of both softer highlights and shapes besides lines). The same goes for your shading - remember that you're shading hair and not spheres, so the shade edges won't be completely smooth but instead a little jagged (example here to show off hints of hair strands within the shading/highlighting). 

In general, don't be afraid to use different highlight colors besides white and experiment with different shapes and tones to create more depth and softness to your pieces ^^

tintenhai

First off, your art style looks great!! The way you've stylized your chibi anatomy looks fab to my eye.

I agree with kitsutea about the white line highlights- trying different shapes and colors for the highlights is great advice. Overlay or "Add/Glow/Luminosity" layers on a lower opacity might be something good to explore for that too. The only other advice I can think to give you is a super small technical tip: I notice that you add a white outline around the characters- it's uneven in places, making me wonder if you do it by hand instead of as a program shortcut? I'm not sure what program you use, but I'll include the way to do it automatically for you in any program just in case, to get that outline nice and smooth so that it doesn't draw the eye away from your figures. :) Otherwise keep up the great work!

In Photoshop: Merge all your character layers, right click layer > Blending Options > Stroke, and you can toggle the width and color from the box.

In Clip Studio Paint: Merge or select all your character layers with the layer checkmarks > right click layer > Selection From Layer > Create Selection. Make a brand new layer under your charas, hit the auto actions tab (looks like a movie clapperboard on the default setup), select "Expand the selection by 1/5px and fill" and then hit the play button.

In SAI and any other program with comparable tools: There's no auto-function, but: With the background layer turned off, click with the magic wand tool OUTSIDE your figures, invert the selection so that it's now selecting your charas, hit "Selection > Increment" until it's expanded to your liking, and then create a layer below your coloring layers but above your background and fill the selection with a solid color.

Rileyisasimp

kitsutea tintenhai

Thank you very much! I'm glad you both like my art. I actually just recently started using highlights so I had no clue about not using white/near white! I'll definitely start using different colors for my highlights. 

@kitsutea 

The hair strands is a great idea ;v; I'll try and include that in my next piece and work with it to see how I can get it to work for me. And I'll try more shapes with the hair! Thank you very much <3

@tintenhai 

i actually use the selection increment tool but it always comes out pixelly for me? i don't really understand how everyone else has it so smooth ;v; is it something to do with my wand tool settings?


tintenhai

Oh yep it might be, sai is so finicky with selections! You can also avoid the magic wand tool altogether by either putting all your chara layers in one folder or merging them, and then holding Ctrl+Clicking on the folder/layer, which will create a selection from everything in the folder/layer for you to increment from. I hope that'll work better? :D

Rileyisasimp

tintenhai

just wanted to say that i tried that and it worked! the white lines are so smooth<3 thank you SO much! ;v;