Character critique

[synthsin75]

Okay, I'm pretty happy with this new effort based on the sketches. I think this is a much more uniform style. I simplified it as much as possible, but I do intend to add some shading/highlight effects.



Hopefully I haven't strayed too far from the thing people were liking about the original.

[human]

Nice; shows a brilliant mastery of the drawing tools.

I wonder what Sang thinks of this?

[synthsin75]

Mastery? Sang? Wow, I'm just glad to finally impress, but I don't think I'd compare it to Sang just yet. I'm still expecting some criticism.

[chucky]

That is HEAPS better Synth What a massive improvement you've made.
If you want a small criticism, too late here it comes anyway
The boots and legs, the colour is a little dark and distracting, and the knees might need some attention proportion-wise- you know what to do.
Also the shadow colour on her neck and hips looks a little saturated/strong.
Oh and most of all .... the tan line creeps me out a little, is it that it's because it's the same shade as the highlight on the nose.Maybe she should have a highlight on those puppies too?:shock:
Good stuff Synthy.

[synthsin75]

Thanks Chucky! I kinda like the legs, but you may be right about the boots being too dark. I lightened them a bit before posting it, but they may use a bit more.

Yeah, I noticed the neck and hip shadow after I posted it. They are distracting. I'll fix that.

I plan to soften the tan line edge a bit and add those highlights when I get into the shading.

Thanks for the criticism. At least now I pretty much anticipated those points. I really appreciate everyone helping me chisel away at this. Keep 'em coming. I'll post more as I get the details added.

[Springymajig]

It's looking a lot better! It's cool to see it progress like that.

I agree with what Chucky said about the legs, also, they look a little... formless... or I dunno... that's not the right word... lemme think...

They don't look like they have bones and muscles, it looks like you've drawn way more upper body studies than legs basically. Legs have lots of nice curves and asymetrical bitses and stuff...

Here's a crude recreation of something I saw one of my tutors draw when he was helping someone else. Sorry... I'm terribly messy with my drawings so I dunno if this is clear or not but it really really helped me... look for these kinda things in the whole human body too, not just legs:


Also... now... please don't be offended by me saying this... cos I'm certainly not a great life artist, and I don't know you personally so I can't see your working methods... but I think I noticed something about your art. Just based on that one life drawing picture you got there (which looks like it's from a photo), and let me say, it's a really good drawing, don't get me wrong, but just looking at that, it looks to me that you've learnt to draw surfaces more than structures.

The Animator's Survival Kit mentions something about this... I would go get it but... it's upstairs and I can't be bothered : p anyway... it's like, you can draw skin tones and shading really nicely, and copy the photo really well, and produce beautiful results. But unfortunately that's not helpful for animators. Animator's life drawings are far more... technical, focusing largely on skeletal and muscle structure. It does look like, from studying the surface, you're learnt a fair bit about anatomy and stuff but if you haven't already (and again, I'm making this observation based purely on assumptions based on what little you've shown us here in this thread, you may very well be doing this already, in which case you have every right to shut me up!) you should learn about the skeleton, invent a good "formula" for a male and female skeleton and muscle structure (again, Andrew Loomis is great for this).

So yeah.... I might be assuming too much, and I apologise if I am but you're obviously a talented person, and I would like to see such talent reach it's potential.

[slowtiger]

OK, I'll chime in ... I deliberately altered your image, hope you don't mind.

First, the proportions. Long legs are fine, but unless you're out to complete stylization like "Yellow submarine", you shouldn't overdo this. The black lines indicate 100% and 50%, where the 50% line is in crotch height, and the ground line where her heels should be (I assume these are meant to be high heels). So I shortened her legs to what still are model proportions (I just learned that legs being 52% of body height are considered ideal for modeling).

Springy is right about the legs missing some structure - if she's going to kick ass, she needs more muscles to do that.

I changed her torso bit by bit. Neck: longer by just reducing the muscles. Correcting perspective of necklace, changed color to make it visible. Remember: what's the sense in drawing stuff nobody will notice? I think the corset needs more contrast to the skin, too. I changed its overall shape - have you ever touched a real corset? I did ... the bottom needed a line to separate the rigid part from the loose brim. The top line shouldn't be straight - after all she's got boobs, so a corset never has a straight line there in most views.

I erased the tan lines - they only got mixed up with the corset. I also eliminated all those body shadows: they were too strong, like separate objects glued on skin - in animation they would pop up and vanish with every movement, so why make your life more difficult?

I also erased most of the lines in her hair and on her chest - this softens her appearance and gives more volume. If you need additional lines inside her silhouette, always keep them to the rim, this defines the volume. Any line through the body should be curved to indicate the depth (top of corset, waist line, necklace).

Of course I could go on endlessly like that - but that would possibly be not the direction you want to go. So these are just suggestions.

[mkelley]

I hate to say it (because Wes is a friend) but I think your version ST is *much* better.

Now -- this is coming from someone who can't draw at all (my cartoons are just that -- cartoony :>) but those tan lines did indeed look just odd and not sexy and the proportions were driving me crazy (she just looked goofy and not in a good way).

I guess it comes down to the effect you are striving for -- there's nothing wrong with trying to say something about tan lines if they work, but here they were just plain so distracting that the viewer might never get past that.

[synthsin75]

Thanks Slow. I agree the legs needed proportioning. I did those kind of slapdash. Everything else I'll take with a grain of salt, as I think it starts to make the character look more generic. And that's not intended to be a corset per say, but more of a stylized maiden's blouse. The tan lines will look better in the final.

Thanks Mike, I'm out to refine this as much as I can, so anything is welcome. Let me know what specifically you liked about the original, and where you think I strayed too far.

[synthsin75]

A few quick fixes. I adjusted the legs, and toned down the skin shade and tan lines. I think overall shading will help a lot, especially on providing volume.

[mkelley]

Maybe the thing with the tan lines is they are still too distinct -- certainly they look better toned down, but they still look more like something painted on then actual tan lines (living in Florida I'm kind of an expert on tan lines :>).

I think you could try blurring them quite a bit more, and then I would still make the breast lines *more* distinct like ST did with his outlines. And something is driving me crazy about the tan lines around the pelvis -- that darkness on the left looks plain weird.

I *know* what you're trying to do, but it just doesn't look right -- there is a disconnect between the intellectual part of the drawing and what's coming across (IOW, it's probably correct to draw it that way as it would be in Real Life, but for an illustration it makes it look phony. If that makes sense). I think I'd do the same sort of subtle tan thing you did on the right on the left (kind of like you started off).

[tonym]

I like these newer shoulders best.

I agree with slowtiger about the perspective of the choker being off. And I do like his smaller trapezius muscles a bit more, too--if only slightly.

Also, regarding the tan lines, I think your lighter color for untanned skin was better than the new darker untanned skin. Red hair often means exceptionally pale skin, so the lighter untanned skin seemed more correct, IMO.

Perhaps you might try returning the untanned skin to it's lighter value and lightening the tanned skin instead?

Also, add me to the coalition of people who think the dark external oblique seems out of place. If that area is shadowy, her ear would be shadowy, along with much of her neck and a little bit of forehead under her bangs, and her armpit. Perhaps you can add more shadows to give the stomache shadow company?

BTW, I'm cool with the extra details in the hair and shirt, if you're cool animating it.

Also, this is the best version of the belt, but I still wonder where the belt loops are on her pants. And I wonder if the belt will look 'right' from a side view. Your pencil sketch on the first page has it doing an odd s-curve that doesn't seem right.

[synthsin75]

Here's some priliminary shading. I'm going to have to go ahead and split up this character into separate layers for rigging, mainly to finish the shading at this point. I also fixed the choker, lightened the skin, softened the tan lines, and added highlights to the face and breast.

::Oh yeah, also had to darken the shirt to contrast the lighter skin.

[Springymajig]

excellent! it's looking great now! Keep it up!

[mkelley]

Looks much more "real" now, Wes (and sexy!).