A new guy's drawing

Speed Racer · July 2007

Uh, hi there. I'm pretty new to all this drawing business, and I figured that this place would probably be the best resource for constructive criticism I've got available to me. So uh, yeah.

This is the first thing I've ever done where I've felt like it was good enough to show to someone. Maybe I messed up some contrast or brightness settings or something when I scanned it in, because things seem a bit brighter than they do on the paper. That combined with the magnification kind of bring out some of the flaws in the shading a little more sharply.

As for things I already know are wrong, I know that the gun on the right is a little crooked and I believe a little smaller than the one on the left. The little circle things on her belt could stand to be a little more exact, and her lips could be shaded a little darker to differentiate a little more from the teeth. The heels of her shoes also seem awkward, but I'm not too sure how to fix 'em.

I think I got the anatomy more or less right, but I'm sure I made a few mistakes here and there. Actually, now that I look at it again, the right arm might be a little too long.

Can you guys spot more problems than me? (I'm sure you can, I mean, this place is famous for their criticism, right?

) Are some of the issues that I pointed out less problematic than I think, or maybe even non-existent? Any helpful criticism would be greatly appreciated. I am still new at this though, so I certainly wouldn't argue if you weren't too harsh about it.

Projeck · July 2007

She a little short, standing at 6 heads tall, Mainly coming from her short legs.

Overall not bad, I'm not go into greater depth right now because I'm too tired, and other crit it better than I.

You should read Drawing on the right side of the brain by Betty Edwards, great book.

Fibretip · July 2007

trouble is... what you have here is essentially a doodle. it lacks the anatomical underpinning required to make dynamic poses work.
whilst that is fine (you're learning... nobody will sweat you for it) you're concentrating too much on the details. When the anatomy is that off, you shouldn't really be concerning yourself with oddly sized belt buckles etc.

The legs are too short, the arm on the right looks nigh on broken, and her torso has a very 2d box feel to it. also the placement of the hat, i believe, would still show us some of her eye..unless they're on her forhead.

but yeah, it's not bad. keep drawing, draw some fruits and stuff, whatever crap is on your desk, DS, cellphone, speakers, cameras, whatever, just keep drawing. Don't worry yourself over the tiny details, just aim for capturing the form and life of your subject.

if you're struggling with knowing where to begin with anatomy, head over to the first post of the questions thread, there's some great stuff in there.

Scosglen · July 2007

You've conveniently covered up almost every inch of her body with a draping trenchcoat and baggy pants (no accident I'm sure :P) and made it pretty hard for us to get a good look at her body.

You're gonna get a lot of inspecific "study anatomy and life" suggestions here so I'm not going to harp on that. Just know that anatomy is an ongoing process of learning for almost any artist and the sooner you start learning the better your work will look. Even very stylized characters are rooted squarely in a good foundational understanding of anatomy.

Any more specific critique about the piece like her hands or the folds of her coat are going to frankly go over your head at this stage in your development, so I'm going to give you one that you can start applying immediately. It's clear that you're building up your lines with lots of tiny, scratchy strokes (what we call "petting the line" in the biz). You should get in the practice of nailing a line in one fell swoop, moving smoothly from the elbow or shoulder; it will make your contours neater and give the drawing a palpable look of confidence.

Highlander_77 · July 2007

A few quick note on proportions, and these are things that should be able to applied easily at any point in your development...several people have mentioned that her legs are too short. And the overall figure is a little short at around 6 heads high (though that's not necessarily incorrect...it just looks kind of short and dumpy...not very impressive or graceful). Let's say we're dealing with a typically sized figure of, say, 8 heads in height. The head and torso (everything above the belt) should be about 3 heads high, while the hips and legs (everything below the belt line) should be around 5 heads. So basically the top half of the body should comprise about 40% of the overall height of the figure, with the legs being about 60% of the figure. So even if the figure is only 6 heads high, the length of the legs should still be a bit greater than the length of the torso. As far as arms go, they should be proportioned so that, if you were to hang them straight down along the side of the figure, the elbows should be positioned just above the belt line, and the hand should fall right about mid-thigh. Also, the upper arm and the forearm should be just about the same length (not counting the hand). Same applies to the legs, the upper part of the leg (thigh) and the lower part (calf) should be about the same lenth...again, not counting the foot.

Don't make fun of this, I did it in about 3 mintues in MS Paint (the only graphic editing software available to me at the moment). It should pretty clearly demonstrate these proportions...

Also, a quick note on men vs women. The stick figure I put there pretty much represents a typical male figure. On a woman, the hips are wider in realtion to the shoulders than on a man. Generally speaking, a mans hips are around the same width as his ribcage, whereas a woman's hips are almost as wide as her shoulders (or maybe a little more, depending on how voluptious and curvaceous you want her to look).

Obviously there are slight variances on all these measurements...people in real life don't always conform to ideal, model-like proportions. And depending on what you're going for, you might want to draw someone much shorter or taller than the guidline I gave here. But this should at least give you something to get started with.

Speed Racer · July 2007

That's actually a memory mistake on my part. For some reason I was thinking that men were seven heads tall and that women were six. Now that it's been pointed out to me though, she definitely does look a bit short.

Highlander_77 · July 2007

Mushroom Pie wrote: »

That's actually a memory mistake on my part. For some reason I was thinking that men were seven heads tall and that women were six. Now that it's been pointed out to me though, she definitely does look a bit short.

Actually, I don't think there's any signoficant difference between men & women in terms of their height in relation to their head. Women are generally a bit smaller than men overall (head included), but their head is in the same proportion to their body (height-wise) as men.

Brolo · July 2007

My best advice for seeing where you went wrong is: try drawing her again, but naked.

You'll notice that if you've been working on something for a long time it becomes really difficult to spot errors in it. A good solution is to try flipping it - hold it up to a mirror and see if it still looks correct. If you have a digital camera you can even try getting in the same pose yourself, and use the auto-timer to snap a picture to compare it to.

The greater the viewpoints and comparisons you can get on a picture the easier it's going to be to spot mistakes. Heck, that's why we have work-in-progress threads in here, so people can see if or where they're going wrong before they move on to detailing their work.

Penny Arcade

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