McD's Artwork- crit and advice needed

McD

Hey, so I've lurked around here for a little while and finally decided to fix myself up with an account and hopefully get some crit! Right now I'm really needing some help getting my drawing and artwork to the next stage, I feel like I'm sort of stuck in a rut at the moment and it'd be excellent to get a fresh perspective on stuff. I'm just gonna post a selection of digital stuff I've done in the last couple months to give you guys an idea of where I'm at just now (hope this isn't too much):






























I'm hoping to start work on a small comics project sometime soon, but I feel like my stuff lacks a lot of polish and just isn't there yet. I'm kinda feeling like it's just not appealing or something at the moment... Be as harsh as you like, any comments or crit would be much appreciated!

Cheers!

EWom

I don't know anything about actual arts. But I'll give you my opinion, which is worth a lot, and is currently used as currency in Zambia.

I liked your pics of Freddy & Jason, although Freddy's knife fingers seem more like claws in your picture than blades. I think you should have posted your Exorcist picture here, it seems like one of your better pics.

Silver Surfers hand seems way too big, and the odd angle and shading makes it look like he doesn't have a thumb on that hand, it sort of fades away in his arm and the magic stuff going on around his hand.

I feel like the Hellboy is your weakest picture, I don't know if you were going for a different style, but it seems really sloppy and thrown together.

I think the chick stretching is pretty good also.

McD

Thanks very much for the input, I totally agree with what you're saying. The knife fingers always kinda bothered me, but it was one of those things I just never really fixed... That Silver Surfer drawing had been a pain in the ass from day one! I really just overworked it and in the end I just wanted to finish it. I was kinda going for a bit of a perspective thing on the hand, but you're right, both of them just look too big and compositionally the thumb gets totally lost...

As for Hellboy, that's pretty much what my roughs look like, I thought I'd just throw that on here to show folk how my drawings go before I start working into them... "Sloppy and thrown together" pretty much covers it, though... Cheers for the compliments on the other pieces!

I was wondering if anyone had any tips for drawing extreme perspective, like what I was going for on the Surfer drawing? Any tips on how I could improve inking (digital or otherwise) would be great as well, especially with regards to line weight and shading...

beavotron

For the first two, I personally prefer the first one better than the second, you seem to have done a much better job of breaking the image down into 2 values than trying to cover the full range.
When doing a full value range study, things can very easily get muddy. Try to limit yourself to 3 values at first, then move on to no more than 5.
I think it's Sargent who only ever used 5 values... I'm sure bacon could correct me on that one...photoshop has the problem of offering up way too many values right out of the gate. When you try using that full range, you end up with an overworked piece generally. Try to pay close attention to where value shifts happen and to what degree, pay attention to light and shadow and how they wrap around the form more than to what % of grey is in the value.

Otherwise, thanks for posting! looking forward to seeing your progress

McD

Thanks, man, that's really good advice... I've always had a big problem with overworking stuff and it turning out muddy, which is why I tend to get better results limiting things to just black and white... As far as photoshop work goes, I've got tons to learn.

Cheers!