I'm sure once he responded on here he'd have mentioned that it was probably based off that challenge, and is probably a bit disappointed that all the cheer is for someone else's work.

That said, it's the way he uses the palette that I like most.

Actually, it's perfectly fine to post just line art - no colours required.

The line thickness is inconsistent. If that is intentional, you should learn what banding is so that you can make those big chunky black lines look smooth and how they could actually belong.

I'm a bit confused over why on something meant to be incredibly hairy we'd see the muscles as well defined as they are here, most notably on the arm. To be honest, to my unprofessional eye, the shoulder volumes look better defined in Helm's version, the hair better in the three relevant edits provided - and I also see what look like stray white pixels towards the left, making it look grainier than miscdude's attempt. Maybe there is more to be learnt from them?

Not to insult your work, though - it's great, aside from the strays. Maybe the experts can state whether if the muscles were less detailed with sharp shadows it could look more like shaggy hair in your original illustration, and less like thin layer of hair? Also, with less focus on defining the muscles in detail, perhaps a little time would be saved.



...regarding time - for me, at least, this would still take the better part of a day until I'd done a few dozen. Heh.

It sounded like you, but it sounded better.

Very nice work on the frog outline compared to your previous work.

Besides sketching this and then doing the volumes by shading with a pencil, which you should totally do, there's another way to practice this:

Try one dark colour outline (black is fine for this practice), and two colours (one light, and one dark) for the inside. Greys are fine. You can use more colours later for more practice, but for now these three should be enough.

This way you can just define the volumes - you can practice how the light works. If you understand how lighting works (or want practice), you should be able to do (or try) this.

Look at the other frog shown to you there, compare it to yours. His looks like a solid object, with bright light catching above the lip, on the protruding chin, and then shadows where no light falls at all. Your frog, no offense looks like he is absorbing light most of the way through his body, somehow. He's not just one ball - he's a bundle of 3d shapes mushed together, as said above. Shading this all in with pencil is the practice people have been talking about.

Still, I think you're improving when it comes to doing the overall shape.