Phoenix kind of bird

[Flem1000]

Hello, I'm making kind of a phoenix for a friend. I'm having trouble with drawing the feet, and I feel like the perspective is off since they are very similarly drawn, and given how the body is shaped and such. But I don't really know what to do. The feet are very close to the body on purpose, as I'm going for a cute approach. Thank you for any feedback or advice you may have

[Flem1000]

Wait, been a while since I've been here. How do you insert images again?

[fskn]

Wait, been a while since I've been here. How do you insert images again?

Click on the "Mona Lisa" icon (1st of the second row), then paste the image address in between the img tags.
But it's gotta be the image address, not the address of the page where it's hosted.

Like:

Code: [Select]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/7Kv4MJj.png[/img]
Which gets parsed as:


And not:

Code: [Select]

[img]https://www.imgur.com/7Kv4MJj[/img]

[Flem1000]

Ah, I see. Thanks!

[fskn]

NP.

As for advice... Did you use any references?

[Flem1000]

I did use a few pictures for the tail and wings, but I didn't follow any of them 100%. I took some things from different pictures and made a sketch of my own that I used. But here are the references.

[fskn]

Okay, the first one doesn't have any feet, the bottom two do, so you could try and copy that... BUT I'd say that you should try first drawing it in separate, traditionally, on a piece of paper, to understand how bird feet work, their forms, etc. Then you would translate that to pixel art.
EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to say: using photos of real birds as reference.

It could be a bit of work, but I feel it's the correct way to approach it. Others will most likely have a different opinion (I hope they'll chime in).

[Flem1000]

That does seem like a good approach. I'll see what I can come up with, thanks

[Flem1000]

Well, I tried to draw some new feet, and they definitely look more birdfeet-like I think. The perspective is also better I would say. But while real birds have legs, I'm trying to make it cute, so therefore I've decided not to give it legs. Most birds also have three toes in front, but I couldn't really make room for that, and I'm not trying to make it super realistic anyway

[eliddell]

The original didn't work because the more distant foot was sticking out further, making it look bigger than the near one, in defiance of perspective.  The new version looks more proportionally logical.  You could even shrink the far foot a bit more if you wanted to, but I don't think it's necessary.

I'm not sure if the far foot is too far along the curve of the body or not.  At that level of abstraction, it's hard to tell.

The other thing that jumps out at me is that it almost looks like you've done the same thing with the wings—that is, made the near one smaller.  The far wing occupies more vertical space along the bird's body than the near one, and it isn't enough shorter from armpit to wingtip to account for the part of it that should be hidden by the bird's body.  Try shrinking it by 2-3px in both dimensions, or make the near wing bigger a bit.