CritCorner

It’s been a while, but I’m finally on the home stretch to my graduation. I’m sorry for any of my followers who have stayed with me this far and haven’t gotten any content, however I would like to reopen my services to you all. 

Unfortunately I will have to restart again, so those who have in the past submitted will have to submit again.

If you have any artwork please submit! I will be taking roughly 5-10 pieces!

Thank you for your kind words! We really appreciate your support.

Now, I wanted to talk about this artwork.

Your level in detail here is wonderful! And I can see a nice composition going here, from the foreground the brown vines to the first creature, then the second in the middle ground and finally the 3 “camouflaged” one in the background. I admit, it did take me a second to see it! 

Some pointers I would like to give to you:

1) Color Theory

There’s so many youtube videos out there that talk about color theory, and it’s still a hard lesson to learn. I suggest Ahmed Aldoori, Sycra (he has an amazing color theory tutorial), and Bluefley. There are other related ‘tubers you can find too, but these are the ones I really enjoy.

In short, I see that when you color pick, you are only picking from the same family and not extending your shadows and highlights to other hues. For example, when you draw the leaves, move the scroll a little warmer or cooler (depending on the mood you are trying to achieve). Try to stay away from going darker or lighter within that hue.

2) Aerial Perspective and “Smokiness” 

This is important because this adds more “depth” to your art work. Depicting air really shows volume in your works. With creatures, you want to add some blur to the edges of your objects, creatures and humans especially need this because they move. Not so much with trees. This term is called  Sfumato - which Leonard da Vinci is most famous for. Check out this example.

However, with aerial perspective - “the technique of representing more distant objects as fainter and more blue,” this will instantly make your picture have more depth and not feel so squished. 

Adding a fog around the lower part of your image will also help that smokiness I’m referring too, giving volume to your picture!

Actually, I’ve been thinking about this! Sorry for being absent for so long. I’ve been thinking about just starting over and taking new crits (I suspect I’m the only mod left).

Hopefully soon, there’s been some personal problems I’ve been going through but I’ll try to go through the ones in the queue soon!

Wow! I definitely enjoyed looking through your gallery! One thing that really stands out is that you’re experimenting with scenes and backgrounds, which is really good.

From what I’ve researched, freelance illustrators mostly focus on making the picture pretty. This will mean that you are going to have to dive into all aspects such as more environments, animal/creature anatomy, and so forth. I especially like this piece, http://fav.me/d8fsgfm, and http://fav.me/d8ng8pi, because you are playing a lot with light, which really pushes the artwork.

For gaming, tumblr user http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/ had some amazing articles for gaming artists, in one of his articles he quoted from Gavin Goulden (lead character artist on Bioshock Infinite) twitter which gave very stern feedback and key aspects for gaming artists. Take a look over it and see where you stand.

I wanted to start off and say that I’m really sorry that we have been inactive. Most of our admins have moved on to bigger projects (like jobs and what not). 

However, with this school semester coming to an end for myself, Admin Tina, I will pick up where we left off. Unfortunately this will mean I have to return to just critiquing an art piece at a time. I will only be taking a hand full of critiques at a time as well! 

Right now we're full on critiques and have closed the submission link but don't worry, we're working on critiques and trying to get them out as fast as possible! Be on the lookout for the next submission post!

I guess I submit links here?

My dA: http://logical-break.deviantart.com/

My art-tag on tumblr: http://logicalbreak.tumblr.com/tagged/Aaaaaahrt

Doodle tag: http://logicalbreak.tumblr.com/tagged/doodlifuckingdo

Hello! Admin Tina here!

Your art is coming around really nicely with drawing both figures and creatures such as Pokemon. I really like how you push yourself with your work. Especially with making comics, your attempts with figures and color theory.

The two biggest things I see with your work are Composition and Color Theory. In some cases, such as [x] [x] I fee like you’re cutting your composition too close and not allowing enough breathing room.

Here is FZD’s video on painting over a student’s piece. It helps describe composition, which is ultimately what will make all of your art interesting. It will make or break your work. Also check out our sister blog Art and Sterf if you haven’t already and go through their composition blog here.

With Color Theory, your art is way too saturated. Even if this is a style, your art will greatly improve if you choose more **unsaturated colors. Your objects will appear more dynamic and will look more fuller if you were to implement more saturation. I know that those colors sound gross, but Sycra’s video [x] will show you have to pick colors that work very well together. 

Please also check out A&S’s tagged posts here on Color Theory. That’s about it for now! Don’t want to overwhelm you! Good luck and happy arting :)

Hello, this is my deviantart -> http://chitsuu.deviantart.com/

I recently had a fresh start and would like to have your opinion on this gallery, such as what to work on.

Thank you very much.

Hello chitsuu. uvu First off I’d like to say that there is a softness to your work that I really like, and the color schemes are nice. It looks like most of your colored works are watercolor, so I would suggest watching watercolor process videos on youtube or vimeo. I’ve always felt like process videos help me with coloring, so I hope they can help you too.  I think what will help you most is drawing and painting from life! For anatomy especially, doing a lot of more loose drawings (both from imagination and reference) will allow you to experiment and learn about anatomy and form. Draw lots of figures on the same page! Do this with anything you want to improve. Larolaro has some good examples: 

http://fav.me/d2bqhkv

and doing this from life is good too! 

http://fav.me/du002k

As for working on painting, doing watercolors from life or photo can help. I recommend high contrast lighting so the different values and shadows are easy to see. 

FINALLY I really like that you’re drawing different types of characters doing different things. Allowing yourself to draw lots of stuff and experiment will only help you grow as an artist. I hope this critique helps!

Please be aware that we are only taking links to places such as your art blog, art tag, deviantArt, or any other form of host for your art.

We are only critiquing your overall progress and not your individual works. This is an experiment to see if this is more helpful to you guys.

If you send us individual pieces, we will not critique them and will be subjected to deletion. 

If you do not have a link, a post of several of your works will work.

Thank you all for being so supportive and sticking with us through our slow times.

We have finished all the crits, but now I think we should do a change in pace.

I'll open up submissions tomorrow, but instead of individual pieces I think it would be helpful if you all sent us your links to your art blogs and we take a look at your overall progress and tell you what we think you should be working on and what we think is working for you now.