This is my first attempt at working towards the Artisanal contest, and my first attempt at drawing on my computer. I've always tried just scanning things before, but it never looks as nice as the actual drawings. So, I started from scratch on MS Paint, then moved to Photo Filtre for the coloring.

Click to view attachment (This isn't working for me, but I uploaded it to photobucket at : http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e374/Tri...ylvanCGHair.jpg )

It's not quite finished yet, I have to make it actually Achaean, but I was hoping for some feedback on the anatomy and such, since you people rock the art world. I'm still fighting with getting the shading on the skin right, and the hair didn't turn out how I wanted it, but I was looking for some comments since everyone here is generally awesome with helping out.

Just some future plans:
To help make it more Sylvan-esque:

• Vines snaking up from the sides, what is a Sylvan without Viridian?
• Entities possibly, bees might pose a challenge, but a weird and efreeti at the least
• Add an elemental background, motes of fire, air, earth, and water, perhaps? To give it a more Achaean feel.
• Give her a moon tattoo on her head, since everyone uses every part of their body anyway

To improve on technic:

• Work on the skin shading, add some highlights from the light source, and shadows from where the cheeks are supposed to be.
• Dimples, to be able to show the fact the she is smiling more.
• Improve the hair, give a shine where the light is coming from.
• Find out how to color the ears: where should I put shadows, should there be another line?

That's everything I could think of, if you have any advice, please let me know.

The lines look nice for starting out with, however:

The proportions, while I'm sure were intended, are still a very far bit off. The eye-fold details need to be toned down a bit. It currently appears as two separate cascading eyebrows above each eye. The hair looks nice, but appears to be a little too geometrical (again, this might have been what you were going for).

Oh yeah, left out part of my introduction.

I'm going for the Sylvan's first day with their new skills (but to make it more fun, pretending like they went from nothing to transcendent).
So I was going for a wide eyed look, so I opened up the eyebrow line a bit (perhaps a bit too much?)
I also was trying to be a little more realistic in the Achaean sense, i.e. no one eats until they are starving, which is why I make her cheeks and such a little skinnier than I would have orginally tried.
As for the geometrical hair, I was being am OCD, so I tried to make it as equal as possible, except the bangs.

That's an interesting drawing.

Not trying to be mean or anything, but I'm gonna be brutally honest. Her eyes too large, not the irses, but the eyes themselves. They shouldn't be so large, and should overlap the irises a bit. Right now she looks insane or angry, especially the way her eyesbrows are arched. The eyebrows are too high above the eyes, making it look akward. The face is too low on the head, it should be more towards the middle of the head. The nose is way too low from the eyes, and the face should have a good distance from the chin. Right now her mouth is ON the chin, looking like she has no chin at all.
Her smile shouldn't look so posed, like there's a camera or something. Try to relax the face a bit, or better yet just close the mouth in general.
The facial structure is really off, to say. It looks like there is no jaw and chin, and the upper part of her head goes out too far, making her look like a cone.
The hair shouldn't have a part so big, make it smaller and less parted. The hair looks like she has put in a huge amount of gel, try making her hair less spikey and more natural.

And to say, not to sound rude, it looks like you're using a mouse with MS paint. It's be better if you still used pencil and paper, it'd look much more nicer. If you did a nice job with traditional tools, you'd have a better chance.

Long story short.

Let's NOT take comments and assume, thank you.
I was telling her straight because honestly, the way it's looking, I feel it's gonna take a long way from here to win a merit.
Hell I don't even know if MY submission will get a merit.

Assuming is bad. I never assume. Assume = Ass of U and Me. It's bad to assume, never assume.

That's what you post pretty much said though. "lol that's bad"

Not quite. She said, "lol, that's bad, here's why and what you can work on."

There's a huge difference.

OMG LATUS ALL U EVER DO IS TROLL ME WTF DID I DO TO YOU ZOMG!!!!11

/wrists



SERIOUS POST

Who ever said I thought it was bad. I can't say it's great, but I have seen much. much. worse.
So techincally, you DID assume.
I just told her what she needed to work on if she wanted a merit.
I honestly can say it's better she's told now and a reason why and what to work on instead of Achaea just turning the drawing down.

YOU EVEN BLOCKED ME ON MSN!!



Lol I was just trolling, don't take it to heart. Makes me a sad panda.

Latus countertrolled though.

Elecia! admits defeat.

I kinda figured.
Was still worked up though.

This is actually -exactly- what I am looking for. I've never taken an art class, so I have absolutely no experience drawing humans, I don't know about the proportions, I dunno about anything really.
I'll work on the rest of it. I'm definately not turning it in any time soon.
I was going for a half smile, she's summoning the elements for the first time, so I was looking for an expression that would say Wow, without being being an "O," any advice for that?

It might be a little hard to capture since you say you're fairly new. I kinda recommend, while having her mouth open in a smile, it's much more closed. Like you can barely see it open, and just have the smile more wide.

triangle shaped face

the cheeks angle too steeply inwards like this: \ /

has two eyebrows on each eye (four total)

There is no depth or shading. It is a flat picture.

hair is too symmetrical. did you mirror-image the hair? (yes)

eyes are perfectly symmetrical. mirror image tool again?

ears perfectly symmetrical. mirror image

no definement of the ears. just a plain, single-colour blob.

There is a hole in the bottm lip, near the centre. Mouth cancer?

No chin

No teeth definement. just a plain white area in the mouth.

Hair has a perfect edge on the top. this looks gumby.

too many hard edges

no shading

There are no nostril-holes

there is no nose above the tip

there is nothing on the face - huge empty regions of plain, unchanging colour

The eyes are perfectly white, and the pupils are perfectly circular, symmetrical, and identical to each other. copy/paste?

all four eyebrows are prefectly symmetrical. mirror image tool again.

the face is out of proprtion. all the features are down the bottom. a HUGE (hidden) forehead. It's like you took a normal face and added another forehead on top, thats how out of proportion it is.

Lol @ these.

The general shape of the head is way too big of a forehead, sort of like hydrocephalus. Make it more proportional.

As has been stated previously, the face definitely needs to be moved up. I used to make that same mistake when I first started drawing-- I still do, sometimes, because I'm not very good!-- but you'll get the hang of it.

What are you using to draw this? Like Prismilia said, it looks like you're using MSpaint with a mouse. If you're serious about trying your hand at digital art, I'd suggest forking over $100 for at least a Wacom Graphire-- I have an Intuos3 that I absolutely love, but I got it on sale. There's no way I could afford full price. Software also helps. MSpaint blows-- I'd suggest at least the free version of openCanvas. I think the Graphire comes bundled with Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel essentials, which aren't the best, but can help you do the job. I'll PM you the link to the free openCanvas if you'd like, and teach you how to get started with it.

Remember, though. Equipment means absolutely nothing if you can't draw in the first place. Keep practicing on paper with a pencil until you get the basics down, and STUDY ANATOMY. Knowing what the bones, muscles, and flesh of the human form look like can really help you understand how to put them together more realistically. I found a couple of good websites that I'll PM you as well.


EDIT: Oh, and the neck-- WAAAAY too narrow. A head like that would snap it right in two.

lol

I "Study Anatomy" every day.

You may want to abandon your art hopes.

The only good thing I can say about this is that the skin color is A-ok.

I am being overly harsh because I am drunk.

But seriously... this is really bad, and this is only a head.

Hey, just wanted to step in and tell you to NOT give up, despite all the criticisms. People can be a little bit harsh, but ultimately, their comments will help you win the artisanal.

Your work has a lot going for it, and I am interested to see what direction you're heading with it. I like your clean lines. I think all too often, people draw sketchy, vague lines to hide the fact that they're uncertain about the form they are drawing. To balance your work's simplicity though, I would advise you to draw a very detailed (maybe even stylized?) background. You will be competing against some very skilled people in the Artisanal, but I've noticed that the judges will often reward a less-skilled work as long as the composition is interesting and has obviously had a lot of time spent on it.

It seems like a lot of people simply don't dig the 'style' of the picture. Yes, the face is not realistically proportioned, but then again, if you're going for the 'anime' style, that is completely expected. Don't be bullied into changing your style if you don't want to. Art isn't about exactly imitating life anyways. If it was, then no one would draw and we'd just take photographs then photoshop them to suit ourselves. But if you'd like to appeal to a wider audience, it wouldn't hurt to practice drawing from life. All of the best artists started from there, and once they had honed their observational skills and aesthetic tastes, they then consciously altered their style to something unique.

Anyways, just wanted to give you my two cents and encourage you to keep drawing. This forum is a little dead, and I suspect it's because people are so harsh to newcomers. I wish it were a little more supportive. It'd be nice if it were a place to foster new artists, ideas and works, but instead it seems to be a place where we either 1) worship already accomplished artists or 2) punch people in the teeth.

That's kinda how the whole forums are, Malina.

Thanks for all of the feedback! I'm going to start from scratch, and I would like to extend a HUGE thank you to Amunet, who has given me a lot to learn, and I -really- appreciate it.

@Maximo: Please do notice I said -first- attempt. As in no prior attempts were made. As in this is my first time. I'll be damned if I'm giving up that easily.

I've been working!
It's nowhere near complete, but is this progress? I know it's only line art, but I'm still learning colors and etc., so I need some feedback on the lines before I waste time coloring it.
Decided to change the hair, and go for a more wide-eyed feel (Still learning proportions, so do tell me if it is too far off!)
Thing I'm definately fixing:
Eyebrows, they look ok on paper, but when I scanned them I lol'ed.
Ears, wtf do I do inside the effing ear?! (Rhetorical question, I'm looking at online sources for that one, if you have them, lemme know!)
Hair, once it's colored, the one section in the front is going to be a different color than the rest(Think Rogue from X-men)
Let me know anything else that makes you facepalm please!

Mucho improvement, grats.

Much better! Few things: for the inside of the ear, just pull out a mirror and look at that. It's much, much easier than trying to find an online resource, and they're not complicated enough to be worth that much effort anyway, it's mostly just swirly bits.

The top of right eye is a slightly smoother curve than the left; the left one is almost pointed at the high part as opposed to the right one which is an arch.

And for the left side of her head, the hair should be curving down from the top to about halfway down her neck, even blowing in the wind, to portray both the skull behind the ears and the fact that hair has mass.

Other than that, it's nice. I like the way you've done the shape of the face.

You are definitely improving. Good job!

The head seems to flair out at the top, usually cheekbones are the same width as the top of the head.

Your head looks like an alien except you gave it human eyes, skin color and hair.

Your other head has the same shape as this alien.

Too many reruns of X-Files?

I see what you mean at the temples; they keep flaring outward when they should have started to slope up.

This might help. I love anatomy sites for drawing.

Been working on coloring, so tell me what you think!
Got the inspiration from someone trying to make an Aeon tarot card, so I figured I'd try to make a sun one!
Then I got to thinking, wouldn't Occultists and Jesters draw 'em different?
So I made two!
First is my Occultist work:



Now the Jester!:


Just a note so I don't pull a Nylan, the design around the top and the bottom of the Jester work is included in the photoshop paint brush things, I was more focused on shading/choosing/shadowing the colors.

The above is painful for my retinas.

Need to study proportions to make your portaits better.

I'm hoping you mean bright


Yup! I'm on it!

Cool. Look forward to your updates.

I like the idea of the two classes drawing cards differently. You're definitely getting better, though the advice of a blind person on art isn't necessarily worth .

here's one tutorial that might help you overcome this problem.

http://neondragonart.com/dp/tutorials/pencil.htm