Anyone who would be kind enough to provide criticisms.

DRaelrich

Good evening, everyone for whom it is evening. Good whatever else to whomever else.
New to the forums, sort of. Posted here almost a decade ago, but don't remember any of my information.

I've been an aspiring professional artist for going on seven years now, but I've been almost exclusively graphite-and-ink for most of that; I've been working on improving my ability in digital art much more recently, only getting into it over the past year or so. The style I like to draw is one that generally keeps anatomically accurate proportions, but isn't heavily focused on realism.

Ideally I aim to work either freelance or salaried in the Art Entertainment industry; I'm not one hundred percent sure which direction I'd like to go, but I would like to make money telling stories with images, moving or still.

With that in mind, I'm going to post some of my stuff in this thread, and I'd like for anyone stopping in to take a look and tell me what they think. My aim is mostly to improve in digital coloring, lighting and shading, but if anyone has other tips those would be appreciated as well.

Without any more ado.

DRaelrich

This one took me a while to get to this point. I'd like to take it further, but I'm not sure how.

DRaelrich

I used to keep the pencil for my drawings when I colored them, but that felt less... refined, I don't know. It didn't give me the look I wanted.
Even so, I felt pretty good about this one.

DRaelrich

NakedZergling

Third robot guy is pretty cool. I know the temptation to dive into digital is overwhelming, but don't let it distract you from the foundations of light, shade, value, composition, anatomy, perspective, etc. Your images are also a tad on the smaller size, making it a bit difficult to see some of the detail. I would love to see just some of your sketches and stuff. It looks like you're off to a good start, just keep grinding away. Work on it every day, and keep coming back here to post.

DRaelrich

I appreciate the response. I am... new to foruming, so I didn't really know if I could upload images instead of just using image links. You can see larger versions of each here:

Robot Fight
Stone Swamp
Third Robot Guy

DRaelrich

As far as less finished drawings go... here's a few:







This one I consider mostly finished, at least in the graphite-and-ink stage.

FANTOMAS

all I can say is, in the latest ones, if you are going out full manga, you might want to make them a bit cleaner, softer and more uniform shading, dont get the lines to be so bold AND sketchy, in my humble opinion they can work as sketchy, or they can work as bold clear lines.

Regarding the digital ones, I think you need to desaturate the colours a bit, and try some more contrast, right now it all looks very bright, yet flat at the same time (product of everything being equally too bright, Im talking about the round robot with the guy in the green pants, particularly saturated background, and particularly weak contrast shadows)

Welcome back to PA:AC !

PS: I always forget to mention the good parts, I like the one tagged 8/1/2012 , I like the second drawing too, specially the colours used.

DRaelrich

Also this one.

DRaelrich

Also this one.

DRaelrich

Accidentally double-posted on those last two.

Thanks for the comment, Fantomas. I know that it can look like I'm going for manga-styled drawings, but I'm actually trying to stay away from them; Japanese comics were one of my initial inspirations to get started drawing, but I want to get away from the anatomical tropes that come with that style.

As for the digital, I will definitely try pulling back on the color saturation and strengthening the shadows.

Mustang

I wouldn't get too tied down in the details at the moment, they'll only serve to slow down your progress.
Obviously working from life and references is a great idea at the moment, but also take some time to copy some of your favourite artists. It'll allow you to deconstruct their work and give you some idea of how they put things together, why they used a particular line weight there, why composing it a certain way gives the piece more life..etc.

DRaelrich

I do a bit of drawing from life, but rarely any imitating artists; I might have to give that a try, thanks.

DRaelrich

I also did this:





Not my best work, but fun.

DRaelrich

I suppose I should put up some WIPs as well.

DRaelrich

worldalpha

Some of the polished ones look really great. Good job!

DRaelrich

Thanks!

Also, A recently done one: this is a random sample page to show a potential client that I can do pencilwork for superhero comics.