Aelfyn's 2D Art Thread - Critiques Welcomed!
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Hello all!
I suppose now would be a good time to introduce myself and give you a bit of background with my experience in 2D art. Drawing has been a hobby of mine my entire life and something that I am very passionate about. Aside from the few art classes I took throughout my elementary and high school years, I am mostly self taught.
I've dabbled in digital art the last few years, but recently decided it's time for me to get a bit more serious and REALLY learn how to draw. So here I am--ready for your feedback, constructive criticism, and critique. This thread will serve as a space for me to share my ongoing projects in hopes that through your advice and knowledge, I can improve my skills! Thanks in advance.
~Aelfyn
P.S. If you're interested in following me on social media, click the links below:
https://www.artstation.com/aelfyn
https://www.instagram.com/aelfyn.art/
https://twitter.com/aelfyn_art
I suppose now would be a good time to introduce myself and give you a bit of background with my experience in 2D art. Drawing has been a hobby of mine my entire life and something that I am very passionate about. Aside from the few art classes I took throughout my elementary and high school years, I am mostly self taught.
I've dabbled in digital art the last few years, but recently decided it's time for me to get a bit more serious and REALLY learn how to draw. So here I am--ready for your feedback, constructive criticism, and critique. This thread will serve as a space for me to share my ongoing projects in hopes that through your advice and knowledge, I can improve my skills! Thanks in advance.
~Aelfyn
P.S. If you're interested in following me on social media, click the links below:
https://www.artstation.com/aelfyn
https://www.instagram.com/aelfyn.art/
https://twitter.com/aelfyn_art
Replies
I was having issues painting the last look, where she is wearing a veil made of harpy talons. The talons look a bit off, almost as if they are popping off the page. I tried repainting and adjusting them, but to no avail. Perhaps my lighting is off?
Any critique on the drawing as a whole would be greatly appreciated!
Answering your question: Yep! It's the light. You take great care with the details, but the volume—and light by consequence—needs more work. It's not that these elements don't have volume, in isolation they'd work fine, but they don't inhabit exactly the same 3d space. Get the volume right and everything will look more grounded.
I suggest staring with studies of basic geometric solids: Cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders. Boring, I know, but it helps to get stronger grasp on volume. Do their regular version then try variations with flat faces, as if someone sliced off a bit of a sphere, inflated as if two spheres where merged, etc. It's pretty late here now and I'm sleepy, but I can look up examples for you if this sounds confusing.
Also reading about how light works on a diffuse material helps. Understanding how the angle of incidence the light "controls" how lit a given area of something is took my volume rendering to another level. I also learned a lot about light and materials by osmosis by playing with 3D software. This is about changing your mindest and looking at things less like lineart on a transparent canvas waiting for colors to happen and more like planes on a 3D space.
And about faces themselves, you can't go wrong with Asaro's Head. You can find tons of photos of this on the internet. Look at the planes of this head and try to find the similar planes in your painting. Think about how light would interact with them. If you're okay with this I can do a quick overpaint showing how nailing down these plane transitions can help with light.
Wonderful feedback. I appreciate you taking the time to reply! I'll definitely look into some exercises for lighting as you suggested.
And yes! You're totally welcome to paint over - thanks again!
1 - Lateral planes of the cheeks and temples
Start with the big planes. They're important to give depth to the face and help to figure out the rest of the face. I didn't go as hard on the right side as I did with the left because I knew what I'd do with the light in the end, but if you feel it'll help to figure the other planes you can absolutely keep this in a new layer and do both sides at this stage, softening what fights the lighting later.
2 - Move on to smaller facial planes
Using a top central light source makes it harder to go wrong with volume. The shadowed areas of these facial planes will rarely get darker than the ones at the extreme sides of the head for a simple reason: None of them are farther to the viewer and more angled in relation to the light source than those on the lateral of the head.
Also note the values used in the center of eyelids, the eyebrows and the hairline. If they're closer to the light source then they'll be lighter than same-colored elements further from it. If you go too dark on the roots it'll push the entire scalp away, flattening it when compared to the rest of the composition. You'll be tempted to use the same values for other elements spawning the region like the claw adornments and this will throw your entire volume work off.
3 - Light it up!
By doing the intense lights last you'll be able to take advantage of the volume work you did earlier. Just follow the planes. I used a light more to the side than you for extra volume definition and dramatic effect because I'm a hack, but one thing about it is true even for lights positioned behind the subject:
Rim light does not stay on the rim. Rim light stays on the planes of the rim. It'll have varying thickness and color and intensity, it'll get occluded by other elements. You can extract most information guiding these decisions from the volume work done earlier.
A cool trick: You can also increase the cohesion of all elements by using subtle light and shadow gradients at this stage. If you look at the bg at the left you'll see it's slightly darker on the step 4. That's a multiply gradient I used to help to tie the hair/face/neck volumes together. Overlay and Color Dodge are also useful for this. Use very low opacity, 2%-10%, only enough to suggest a volumetric fog presence.
I hope this helps! If you feel inclined to revisit this piece in particular there's an extra challenge for you: Cast shadows. The claws, the hair, they should cast shadows (which won't remain at the exact same distance to the element casting them, a shadow on an eye socket will be thicker than one on the bridge of the nose). Shadows are challenging, but are another thing helping to define a solid.
I can't thank you enough for all of the information you've provided and for taking the time to prepare a paint over. Seeing the difference in lighting really made me realize how flat my original drawing is. Looks like I've got my work cut out for me--time to delve down the rabbit hole of lighting. Pretty excited to revisit this piece and play around with the light/shadows. Thanks again.
Same as before--all crits are welcome and appreciated!
I've learned a lot on this one thanks to you all. I attempted to use that newfound knowledge and apply it to my latest piece (below).
If you want some feedback, the shading on the ear looks flat, and those darker shadows make it only more visible. The folds should have more structure to them, compare it to a normal human ear (but make it pointy). To avoid that flat look, shade it like it's made of cylinders or tubes.
The eye on the left could use more refinement (at least with the eyebrows and eyelashes) and maybe blur them down a bit, the lines are super sharp compared to the nose. The wings of the nose don't need to cast such a long shadow to the right(unless the light is super dramatic), you can make that much shorter. Especially coz the light comes from the top.
Here's the latest WIP I've been working on. This is the first time I've drawn a male character, which was challenging for me to say in the least. Of course, all critique and feedback welcome!