2d concept art. Female faun (sketches, critique)

oksanakhlaponina

Hello everyone! I'm a 2d artist generalist from Ukraine.  My portfolio: https://www.artstation.com/oksa

This is one of my personal projects I'm currently working on. I finished this concept two days ago and I need some critique to know how to improve my work. I would really appreciate it!

Thumbnails. The fist step of my concept. 



Next I chose three of them for a lineart and color sketching

1)
2)

3)


Now I want to choose one more of the sketches for a detail render. What thumbnail or sketch do you like?
 

JeRayhatt

HI! I love the way you capture the character's personality through her pose. Although I'm not sure what it is you're showing on her hand. is it fire? how it isn't light up? Also, her breasts seem to be sagging down. Overall, it seems like you're afraid to get into detail in the final rendered work. I personally love realism, so I think it's lacking details that could make the character looks real. Don't be afraid to jump into details! 

don't forget to show draftsmanship. A Disney artist Laura Price on youtube taught us a way to do it is to make a character turnaround. 8 points turn around for asymmetrical character. 

I love your portfolio on ArtStation. The cover photo with the logo looks professional. 

birb

Welcome to polycount! I'm going to offer diametrically opposite feedback now, heh.

I like your rendering style and feel you got a good amount of details for it. From an artistic point of view the level of detail is also quite well balanced, focusing in the important parts. What I'd like to see is more material variation and pushing designs towards their logical ends—eg someone who is big on those tattoos to the point they used the design on the pouch might pick belts with a decorative stitching pattern too. I disagree about the breasts; save for some thumbnails where color is flat and it's harder to read areas of the tops I feel they're fine—that's how breasts are supposed to work. If their look is a source of annoyance somehow you can rework the top designs to have thicker bands—providing a little bit more separation between torso and the supporting parts—and be careful with the shading at the laterals to show the insertion point of their volume in the torso.

I like some of the designs with short hair better because they have more interesting silhouettes, eg 1, 2, and the last two. That's not to say your choice was bad, it's just a bit more classic thus expected.

I've got a random general tip for grabbing more eyeballs to your work: Use darker, more abstract (or literal but obscured and foggy) backgrounds when using sharp rim lights. It'll provide more contrast and let you squeeze more hues into that light, an aesthetically pleasant effect people find hard to ignore. Figurative designs can be used, of course, but keep in mind they flatten the image. The lost depth is something you must be consciously willing to give up, not an accident.

As possible points for improvement I suggest giving extra attention to the human vs non-human anatomy blending (the legs, besides being covered in fur and having hooves are 100% human shaped) and maybe exploring a bit more hue shifts in a same material to further widen your comfort-zone palette and materials depiction. Your grasp of lighting vs volume is good as evidenced by the rim light, but you might benefit of giving a few elements a bit more attention like flutes and wrist, which are reading as a bit too flat. Anatomy and figure drawing to improve speed and accuracy are also helpful, it's impossible to study them too much.

TLDR you got a lovely style, you know you brushwork and you're doing a great job. Keep up the good work!