2 drawings - need criticism

Crazy Artist

Ok so i did these 2 in the last couple of days, i thought they were pretty good but wanted some critiques on them. Heres the first: its me, my friend dan, and my friend david. We all work at Hen House, and we have a paintball team called the Hen House Heroes - this was supposed to be like a movie poster.


and here's the second, it's a fanart of the character Jenny for The Zombie Hunters (check it out if you like zombie's and brick-flails http://www.thezombiehunters.com/) I know the one hand sucks ass so ya. anything other criticism but that would be great.

Obilex

if the front of them is white, then the shadow should be behind them, not in front.

MKR

Obilex wrote: »

if the front of them is white, then the shadow should be behind them, not in front.

I think that's a mushroom cloud behind them. Wouldn't the sun still keep the front bright, even with a nuclear explosion in the back?

Kamikaze Purple

Same ol' same ol' about anatomy, but what I really wanna know is, are you laying down the guidelines before you actually draw the characters? I'm talkin' about the circles and the shapes and all that...

I think that alone would greatly improve the quality of these pictures.

Obilex

MKR wrote: »

Obilex wrote: »

if the front of them is white, then the shadow should be behind them, not in front.

I think that's a mushroom cloud behind them. Wouldn't the sun still keep the front bright, even with a nuclear explosion in the back?

oh i gotcha, i was thinking they were just poorly drawn clouds.

in_absentia

I'd recommend grabbing a ruler for your straight lines (that shovel especially). Aside from that, and what the others have said, the rest of your lines are very scratchy and not in a good way. Try to work on smoothing them out and changing their thickness.

I think you'll notice a difference really quickly if you do that

MKR

And grab a reference for the explosion.

Davoid

But even with an explosion behind them, the shadows would splay outwards, yea? Not inwards.

/ \

not


\ /

RusticCreature

That first one reminds me of the bags.

I'd totally give you a link that explains what the bags is, but they seem to have gone out of business, much to my despair.

Scosglen

I'm sorry but this is a little absurd. You guys can't see the forest for the trees. Using reference for the nuclear explosion and drawing the cast shadows facing a different direction won't save these drawings. The problem is a complete lack of understanding of the fundamentals of representational art.

OP, if you are serious about improving, then you needs to start drawing a lot more, and do some work from life--pointing out that the shovel is crooked, or the clothing folds are incorrect or whatever is like trying to fill a pool with an eye-dropper. You need to work on the fundamentals.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to post your sketchbook pages and studies as you progress, and people will no doubt offer advice on what to study and how to overcome problems as you come up to them.

The_Glad_Hatter

As davoid pointed out: the shadows. the only way you'd get shadows colliding like that is if there was a big semi-circle of light behind them, and even then it wouldn't work out...

I think you were going for an epic-like feel, like in this poster: http://www.impawards.com/2004/posters/walking_tall.jpg

See how the shadow starts out thin at his foot and widens as it goes out?

that poster also is a good reference for a light source for your first drawing. To make the lit-from-behind thing work well it's not just a black shaded border, it's a combination of light and darkness on your figure. it's hard to do perfectly, but even if you manage to get only a bit of it into your figures they'll come of as beign a lot more convincing.

And big letters and and unsteady hand rarely go together well. If you're going for a typografic feel (not like hand-lettering), use a ruler for your pencils and carefully ink it by hand/ with a ruler.

The Zombie-hunter's slanting pose kinda indicates her falling.
But other from that most of the anatomical problems can be overcome by some life/ photograph studies. Nice to see you're not afraid to try out some sketchy lines, now you just need to build it up with experience.

UnknownSaint

That link doesn't work, Glad.

MKR

UnknownSaint wrote: »

That link doesn't work, Glad.

Open a new tab and access it directly.

UnknownSaint

Well that's annoying.

Also that poster makes me chuckle.