Is my character art good enough? (Anime - Visual Novel)

mikolajspy

Hi, I've been mostly doing realistic 3D Art, but around a year ago I decided to create my own game and figured that Visual Novel would be simple, so I started learning to draw in that style.
I know that on this forum there are very few art of this kind, but I hope you can give me some feedback and critique.
The genre of the game will be slice-of-life/comedy so I'm aiming for colorful and happy style.
Is the art pleasing for the eye or is it still horrible?

Here's one of my characters with different clothes, emotions and hair style.

lotet

Id say its definitely passable, especially when making a game you shoudlt nitpick to much on single art assets. with that said you can always improve, its just a matter of setting goals  

and its not like we have anything against this style of art you know, its more the standard deviant art attitude, aka, cant take critique and going with the "the anatomy isnt wrong, its stylized" argument. so as long as your here to learn and take critique your very welcome to post anime as far as im aware, Ive never tried though so I cant promize anything :P

some things to consider is a bit more defined anatomy and consistent perspective in the clothing.
for example, if your looking at the hips, the shirt of nr 2 and nr 4 has a downward angel, suggesting we are looking slightly down on the character, however nr1 has an upward angle to the shirt instead.

what I mean by more defined anatomy is mostly noticeable in your joints, like hip and shoulders. everything is kind of rounded of and comming of a bit blobby.

take a look at this for example.
Even though its stylized  and has curved edges, there is a clear straight line going from the neck out to the shoulders, then a tight curve, and another straight line going down the arm. Im not sure if this makes sense but basically try to make less loose blobby lines and try defining the anatomy and silhouette a bit more.

JordanN

She's got her arms behind her back in all 4 stills and no other body movement. Stylized characters should be very expressive.

Line of action is your friend. 

I'd also look into consistency in shading. Her head casts a shadow but her jeans and orange shirt are completely planar. Or, how some of her clothes has specular shading but her white shirt is just a diffuse.

I'm not exactly put off by the style because I can think of similar examples (South Park or Fairly odd parents for the very flat anatomy). Just think about polish and consistency.

mikolajspy

Thank you @lotet and @JordanN for suggestions!
I know I'm still lacking in anatomy, perspective and so on, as I said, it's not even a year of learning to draw, but I want to improve while doing this project. And I'm also aware, that even stylisation has more or less base in realism.
I'll be drawing more expressive character poses in "event cg" illustrations. From what I noticed in these games characters mostly just stand there and talk, so I guess action poses would be kind of out of place.
I've tried to do something with the shading on clothes and draw another pose (while I can somehow draw hands in sketchy pencil on paper, doing digital lineart doesn't work as it should...).
Here's what I got now, I addedd white background to show relative size to screen and added few more emotions.
I've also made flipped versions (notice that I tried to keep hair assymetry). I wonder if I should shade flipped versions from begging, but I noticed that most of the games of this type seems not to care about that.

More critique and feedback will be very welcomed!

Alscion

You should check this channel it has some interesting tips for VN : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQtQMEIQkh3ajtx_BMemvIA

mikolajspy

Recently I started practicing drawing fullbody characters, some simple backgrounds and trying to understand better shading/lighting.
What do you think? Any critique/feedback will be appreciated!
I am aware that I messed up the arm.


Does anyone have some idea how to get better at anatomy, perspective, proportions, composition etc. etc.?
Is there anything I could do besides everyday drawing?
Or is there no shortcut and I have to practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more?

Another question: Should I focus only on characters and try to master them, or should I also try doing backgrounds?

pior

"Is there anything I could do besides everyday drawing?"

Don't draw from imagination. Don't improvise. Analyze and think - don't trust your "mind's eye", it's your worst ennemy.

RN

mikolajspy said:

I am aware that I messed up the arm.

Then why is it fully coloured and posted in the final image?
There isn't a single moment that you're not in full control over how the image is going to look. If you can only assess your drawing after you've invested time polishing and colouring it then you're going to mess up a lot more times.

To have any sort of objective opinion on whether your drawing is right or wrong, you need reference -- a photo, 3D model or wooden doll that you can pose -- so that you have the opportunity to look back and forth between your drawing and reference and go "oops, this looks off".

mikolajspy

pior said:

Don't draw from imagination. Don't improvise. Analyze and think - don't trust your "mind's eye", it's your worst ennemy.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind!

RN said:

mikolajspy said:

I am aware that I messed up the arm.

Then why is it fully coloured and posted in the final image?

I realized it after seeing it with colors, but I wanted to finish it anyway and check how well I can do the shading part.

To have any sort of objective opinion on whether your drawing is right or wrong, you need reference -- a photo, 3D model or wooden doll that you can pose -- so that you have the opportunity to look back and forth between your drawing and reference and go "oops, this looks off".

I think this might be the reason I'm drawing some things wrong, I'm not using references, thanks!

mikolajspy

It's been some time, I took all of your advices to heart, and now, using references I'm able to finally draw hands!
I'm still thinking if I should draw with cel-shading, as it's simpler and faster or soft-shading, which takes more time, but looks better.
For now I think I'll stick with cel-shade.

Anyway, here are few of my recent works, any feedback will be appreciated!

lotet

Looks much better!

mikolajspy

I've been trying more softshading as well as drawing consistently (proportions, colors, style, etc.)

I also challenged myself to draw more complex design (I messed up the gun, I need to practice drawing objects).


I think I'm going in good direction with this shading.

Please let me know what you think

EliasWick

All of these are incredible! I am not in position of giving advice since I really don't like manga / anime, but this is gorgeous.

To point out what caught my attention the most: You have a great pallet of colors that you work with and the shading is lovely!

mikolajspy

I think I'm doing some progress with drawings.
Here are some of the latest:



I've also recorded Timelapse/Speedpaint of this Halloween themed illustration, you can check it here: https://youtu.be/6KXvrrldzkg

Any feedback will be appreciated!

mikolajspy

I don't have much time for drawing recently, so I'm mostly doing quick sketches for practice, here are few that came out nicely.
I'm mostly working now on composition/poses.

mikolajspy

Following the recent trend in some parts of the Internet, I decided to draw Earth-chan in my own style.
Here's how she turned out.
I still have small issues with foreshortening I guess, it's not that easy...

mikolajspy

I'm practicing different lineart and coloring/shading styles. Any feedback will be appreciated

JordanN

If you're going for the Chibi style, I would look into more references. Usually they omit the neck and join it with the rest of the body, or the proportions are modified so the Torso and Legs/Feet look equally stubby. Even though it's a cartoon, I think a big head still needs a stylized body that can support its weight.

mikolajspy

JordanN said:

(...) look into more references. (...)

I knew something feels wrong with proportions. References, references... I keep forgetting to use them

mikolajspy

Recently I was practicing also post-processing compositing, to achieve that real anime-like feel in my images, and here's how it turned out.
Background is comissioned art from my first game, Jake's Love Story.