Tats or no?

Ehmavisca

I need your honest critiques. I am pushing myself, trying to be more diverse. No skirts this time. A background AND bird! Dynamic pose (?).

AND I NEED TO FINISH SOMETHING. :evil: What is my problem with being lazy? God, my brain is an idiot.

What do you guys think so far?



Goodnight!

EDIT: Man, her torso is loooong. feck. fixit' in da morning.

Virum

I'm having a really hard time figuring out the perspective and her setting. It kinda looks like the view is from above and her hands are over the edge of a cliff but at the same time...it doesn't. :? It looks like the darker areas could be mountains and she's like falling or something.

And her arms look like they don't have bones.

Mayday

She's jumping in a very accrobatic way, Virum.

Frank, I think her eyes are too close to each other, and the leg we see is too thin at the ankle.

She looks really cute though!
I like it.

Tweaked_Bat_

I'm not sure what's going on :? Is she lying on the ground, or in the air, or what? And... is that a penis up the top, just above her feet? O_o

Ehmavisca

That's a shoe. hehe..

She is jumping, Mayday got it. How could I make that more clear? A shadow I guess?

Thanks for the crits guys, I'm on it. : )

Ravenshadow

I think the problem is the lack of some kind of referrence point. The body isn't showing much motion (all curled up) so the pose is confusing and without some kind of recognizable refference point (the sun/moon/floor/whatever) it's hard to interpret what's going on.

I didn't see the jump until Mayday said it, and even then it still doesn't convey a whole lot of action. The jump comes from the legs, straighten them out and exagerate the energy of the action (I know what I would do to the picture but describing it in words is exceedingly difficult).

If you want I can do a draw over at lunch or something to show you what I mean, if I'm not clear enough.

Lly

How is she jumping? I can't get my head around it .... which way is up? I thought we were looking down on her climbing a cliff till i saw the bird.

Ehmavisca

Thanks guys, a drawover would be great.

earthwormadam

I think it is tough to figure her position in relation to the enviornment. A shadow on the rocks might solve that problem. For example, it is hard to tell if she is touching the ground, or completely airborn.

Swank style though.

-SPI-

The pose is pretty bizzare. And not particulary engaging. If you want it to be a jump you need to do more to convey a sense of movement, for a start her hair isn't even moving.

The arms are really bothering me at this point, and aren't doing much to help with the confusion in the pose. If she were jumping or flipping wouldn't they be out or something? The arms crossing over like that with the head tilted back just creates a really painful looking pose. This is only made worse with her torso twisting around as well.

The hands themselves just looked stuck on at the moment, but I'm going to assume that's just because it's in the early stages.

At this point I'm finding the composition to be a little lacking, you have the top all cluttered with the bird, the shoe, the pieces of rock and her legs. I'm not liking the composition at the moment. but I'm not quite sure what to do about it. Perhaps there's too much rock and not enough sky for the acrobatic theme you want to put out. :? Not sure how to help you with that. But uncluttering that line you have going along the top wouldn't hurt.

If you could have the bird lower in the picture, you could create a curve going from the bird up the acrobat and then around the the shoe (which really needs to be higher to create the whole "FLIP!" feel).

Hope this helps.

Ehmavisca

Ahh kk, I see what you mean. THanks guys. WOrking the arms now, do they look better?

SpeedKnight

It seems like it would look better if her left arm followed the contour of her body, and maybe splay the legs out some, right now it's like a Liefeld kneenub.

Scosglen

I'm really confused what's going on with the background, or maybe you just haven't finished it enough. Is that piece of rock exploding? Why are shoes flying around? The dialogue suggests to me that the bird is psychic and trying to kinetically throw giant boulders at the girl or something.

Also, you are probably already on top of it, but if you're moving the bird you probably want to change the girl's eye focus to the new position too. ( and personally I would flip the bird around to be facing the girl)

Ravenshadow

unfortunately I couldn't find a decent way of conveying the jump motion without realigning her back and arms.

The best I could come up with was this, which is better but still a little confusing compared to the background.



:oops:

anyways, Speeds on the right track. Don't hide her legs, use 'em to convey her motion.

Virum

That's better but it's still off.

I used to do some gymnastics and I've seen tons of it, and none of their jumping stuff really looks like that. I'd watch some videos of girls doing flips and stuff to give you pose ideas.

Sam :)

Ravenshadows paint-over is along the same lines as what I was going to suggest. I think for a dynamic pose/scene such as this one, logic and reasoning can take a back-seat in favor of flow and composition. My advice is not to get too stuck in the "is it realistic?" way of thinking. Your original idea is good, you really shoudn't divert too far from that (except the leg-issue). I think the arms are better in your first pic. As is the overall composition. In the later images the bird is no longer a part of the overall composition - it's just props. If the bird is important I suggest it gets more focus. I think it looks promising.

Virum

Flow and composition is important, but it's also important to understand how whipping portions of your body effect rotation and stuff.

If you move the hands closer to where they were originally I could see that kind of motion being possible. With her hands where they are, she's rotating her upper body one direction. With the direction her torso is going she's whipping the other way, and with the legs where they are in the paint over she's either whipping them to the left so that'd give her another direction of rotation, or they are trailing, but that's a pretty awkward position for trailing.

There's no happy end to that jump.

Edit with image:



With her arms whipping her rotation one way and her abs whipping/rotating her the other, she's gonna really hurt her back. And if her legs are indeed going down like that she's gonna be in a shit load of back pain.

Greatnation

theres alot of blank space on top, maybe take the comicish route and actually add in a small frame or two and make it a sequence? With such a weird movement, it may help convey what she's doing without having to butcher the origional idea so much.

Ehmavisca

I am having a lot of trouble getting the motion right.

So I started another pic. lolll


but I really don't like it, so...

DeeLock

Looks good so far, his facial expression is kinda off and it looks like he's looking two different ways, everything else is aight.

Is that a floating hamburger?

Ehmavisca

Thanks Dee, I'ma workin' on it.

And this.. I don't know wtf this is:

Spilltoy

Supershine eye looks fantastic but doesn't match yet.

Ehmavisca

Ok guys! Give it to me.



Specific questions:
1. Is her torso too long?
2. Any glaring problems?
3. Is she cute.. or not so cute?
4. Or does she kinda look manly?
5. Are her arms too long?
6. Shoulder too wide.. ? too narrow? They seem off.
7. I am really having trouble making the hips/leg area perfect.

Thanks for your help everyone! (^_^)

Mr. Inkswitch

I'm definitely getting an effeminate-man vibe from the face. The rest looks good to me. The mouth and eyes are too large perhaps. The eyes definitely look disproportional to the rest of the head.

Ehmavisca

Mr. Inkswitch wrote:

I'm definitely getting an effeminate-man vibe from the face. The rest looks good to me. The mouth and eyes are too large perhaps. The eyes definitely look disproportional to the rest of the head.

Thank you! I will make the eyes smaller. They are hard to erase though, but I will try. If it doesn't work out so well, I can patch it up digitally. The other features as well. Do you think that will give a more genuine female feel to her mug?

Greatnation

thats a long torso. The arms are the right length, I would go off of them if you decide to resize the torso. The very tip of the wings of the pelvis are just about 2-3 inches below out elbows if we lay our arms at our sides, you have her rib cage too long. Also, while its not really anotomically incorrect the way you have it, generally the hibs are the widest part of the female (shoulder is measured ball joint to ball joint for this) and you have her shoulders and hips the same width, So i would make the hips wider- but thats just me. Also, probably be a good idea to get some kind of foot on her, just to get her sense of weight and finish off her proportions. IE does she have long elegant legs, or the shorter rounder kind?

Overall, I think she's cute.

TimTheSloth

her neck is too long

Mr. Inkswitch

Frank's TMND wrote:

Thank you! I will make the eyes smaller. They are hard to erase though, but I will try. If it doesn't work out so well, I can patch it up digitally. The other features as well. Do you think that will give a more genuine female feel to her mug?

I think that will help, yes. Not to much the height as the width.

I think the eyebrows might be a little too high on the forehead. You might try a more aggressively feminine arch too. Seems like the eyebrows should follow the upper curve the the skull's sockets with more or less arch depending on how you would hypothetically pluck them.

NeoRedXIII

I hope you don't mind and I know I'm not the best at something like this.



I really like it and don't have any true problems with it. I think she's very cute and pretty. Just drop a bit of the details in the face a bit. Also, her right eye seems very slightly, but noticeabley larger. I didn't try and fix that, I don't think it affects the drawing very much. Adding to my comment on the details of the face I think it helps a bit to drop the jawline almost completely. I just took a shot at the legs and I can't prove that it's realistic in anyway however. I probably made her left thigh a bit wide. *shrug*

Very excellent stuff.

Ehmavisca

NeoRedXIII- Thank you very much for the paintover, I think that's a cool pose, and it helps me with the legs. Does it seems somewhat unbalanced though? I'm going to redraw the face.

Mr. Inkswitch - Thanks man, will do.

TimTheSloth - Really? Does anyone else think that?

Greatnation - Yeah, you're right. Very helpful, I will fix it up. Thanks man.

---

her neck is too long

Does anyone else think so?

Will update soon, thanks for all the great help. (^^)

-Frank

Mr. Inkswitch

Now that I look at it, yeah . . . yeah it does look too long.

Cam

Specific questions:

1. Is her torso too long?

Yes, shorten it a tad bit.

2. Any glaring problems?

Not really, but definitely work on the torso/boob area. It's disproportionate right now. Also, the elbows are too high-up on the arms. Bring them down a little bit by lengthening the arms slightly. Although, if you shorten the torso and bring the boobs up a little, they should be fine the way they are.

The only other problem that I notice right now (I'm in a rush kind of) lies in the crotch area. Namely, it's almost non-existant. The legs basically fuse together at the top and there's no room for her, er, private parts. Also, when and if you make the torso shorter/boobs smaller, you will need to bring the bottom half of her body up more. Sorry if this is confusing, I'm really just writing as I think.

3. Is she cute.. or not so cute?

I think so. She reminds me of Iruka's style. I must say, however, that I liked her previous face (bigger eyes.) It gives it more style and shows that you aren't afraid to be a little adventurous. You obviously aren't going for all-out realism, and the exaggerated features give her personality and style. Also, I like the tiny hint of masculinity. You and Toji seem to be the only ones (besides me) who like making their women seem less stereotypical by giving them features that set them apart from the model-esque girls that are frequently drawn by people on here and at Eatpoo.

4. Or does she kinda look manly?

As I said before, yes, and it's not a bad thing. It gives her personality and makes her seem kind of collected and rugged. Her clothes also seem to say that she's tough but stylish.

5. Are her arms too long?

Shorten the forearms a tad and do that other stuff I said. It's hard to describe right now because I'm not really thinking, but you'll get it if you tinker around a little bit and maybe use a picture of a female with similar proportions as a reference.

6. Shoulder too wide.. ? too narrow?

Depends on what you're going for. I'd say keep the shoulders narrow to show that she is in fact, a woman (as if the boobs weren't enough), because men have broader shoulders. If you want her to be cute but rugged and a tad boyish, keep her shoulders narrow. If you want her to be really manly, broaden the shoulders, but you'll have to fix quite a bit proportion-wise to do so and she won't be as cute anymore.

Ehmavisca

Cam - Thanks for taking the time, I really appreciate your help. I tried to adress all your points.

---

Here is an update guys.



Specific Questions:

1. Should I pose her like that, or with one leg behind?

2. Her legs are pissing me off, what's wrong with them? Too skinny?

3. Do the bewbs and the waist look better? I moved them up.

4. The pelvic area seems flat. Any ideas?

Please, tell me anything you see as wrong. Thanks!

-Frank

NightDragon

Frank's TMND wrote:

2. [/b] Her legs are pissing me off, what's wrong with them? Too skinny?

3. Do the bewbs and the waist look better? I moved them up.

4. The pelvic area seems flat. Any ideas?

Please, tell me anything you see as wrong. Thanks!

-Frank

Her hips do seem too small vertically and horizontally, and her legs have no shape to them. Her feet also seem too tiny. The legs you drew seem to just taper down into the feet. Here's a more "swooshy" version of legs.

srsizzy

Umm...the pelvis is too small, not just too flat. There's no hip bones...it looks odd. It's like her legs her legs are flowing from her stomach like tubes.

Ehmavisca

Thanks guys, I reworked it some.



The legs still look funny to me.

Do you guys like the idea of a skirt better?

Greatnation

I like the panties better. Keep in mind, theres about a heads distance in between the belly button and the bottom of the crotch. It doesnt matter all to much with the skirt, but it may help you shape the pelvis a bit better.

Ehmavisca

I see, I forgot that. :P

But.. with the panties.. that's kind of .. weird. And doesn't really fit into my story I have built up.

Any ideas?

Greatnation

Whats the story?

Ehmavisca

Well, the setting is a post-apocolyptic city area, where it wouldn't be a good idea to wear just panties. I don't know, you really think it's cooler than a skirt? I like them both, so I'm not sure.

Fantasyrogue

I'm not really feeling the skirt either. But if the panties don't work, how about shorts? With the cap she's wearing and her somewhat tough stance I think shorts might work.

I'm liking the design so far though and I don't really have anything to add onto what others have already pointed out.