Girl sprite

[lollige]

I have realized that I actually want to be able to draw females properly too.. Which are for me way harder than males, probably because I have almost no experience with them.

Any great anatomy resources you guys use, and can you unleash all your critique on this piece?

[bengo]

There isn't much to critique, keep working on it, giving the girl an actual face would help, also legs are a tad short.

[NaCl]

Hey Lollige,

I am going to assume you are trying to draw realistically, because you said this was anatomy practice. I will try and put these complaints in their order of importance, in my opinion.

Her right arm is way too short. The upper arm should come to around the mid-stomach area. Then the finger tips come to around the mid thigh area.

The general shape of the appendages seem too undefined. The left arm is just a noodle, and the legs just get thicker as they go towards the torso, with no thought to the shape of each part of the leg.

Heads are not just ovals! Not sure if you just had that on there temporarily, but try and get a better shape up there.

The neck and shoulders are too simplified. Look into some reference material for a better shape all around here.

Not bad overall, just put some more care into the form.

[lollige]

Thanks for your replies!

As for the right arm, it is supposed to bend to behind, which gives the illusion it is shorter. However, of course you should not even be able to notice that. I hope I sort of improved it in this version, but not much.

For the left arm and the legs, I do not fully understand what you mean I think. Could you provide me an edit?
I hope I have fixed the face here too.


I was trying to see if I could give her a green cap, blue pants, brown vest and red gloves AND STILL use 8 colors. What do you guys think. Is it possible to create something really nice that way, or should I better put my hands on a 16 color version?

[Helm]

I have realized that I actually want to be able to draw females properly too.

Start with one without obfuscating baggy clothes on.

You've done good though, don't get me wrong. But I fear that if you did a high res sketch of a female body you'd fine a lot more problems than you would in this little piece. Right now the biggest problem is that the feet are short as compared to the torso.

[ptoing]

I second what Helm said and also wanna say that the red and green clash pretty badly here.
The blue against the brown are not very nice either. Those 2 could work tho you have pretty blobby clusters which could be defined better.

As for the red, you have 2 fairly desaturated colour with the green and brown and then you buffen inbetween with a colour which is way more saturated. This generally wont work in most cases.
I think you should mainly study how light affects simple geometrical shapes for a while, and then up the complexity and go for human bodies and combined shapes. Atm I see no real understanding of forms and perhaps pixelart is not the best thing to study these. I don't mean to say stop pixelling, but try to pick up a pencil more and do some fundamental practises. It will help you greatly.

Keep on pushing.

[Mathias]

<<...CRITIQUE UNLEASHMENT INITIALIZATION...>> I'm not understanding the palette here. The first thing my eyes picked out when I opened this was the red and green. I can't imagine making those choices, seems to be an obvious attempt at "color mixing" in order to infuse some interest, but ends up distracting, to me anyway, but 'E' for effort. I kinda like the blue/brown combo, though. More red dots in the shoes! gaaaaahhhhh
Dude, you have some off-the-wall tendencies when it comes to color don't you? That a turtle neck sweater? - her neck should be skin tones if not I'd think. The arms seem to be different lengths - if her right upper arm is at an angle that causes it to be foreshortened then shouldn't it overlap her right breast, not vice versa? Face bugs me, too. It's too basic, using black pixels to represent the features, should rely on light to define the face, it's too round, seems more cartoony than the rest of 'er. Why the black outline?
Like the guys above motioned, why practice female anat on a chick in full winter garb? - doesn't make sense. Draw some figure blanks perhaps, just generic human forms, focus on that, not characters and clothing, etc.

[lollige]

I had her clothing design in mind for quite much a longer period, and I will redo it with 16 colors.
However, I am also starting on a new one. Less, summer styled clothes instead of a girl packed in winter.
Without drawing traditionally before, and using my (male, silly -_-) body as reference for the pose I made this



As for pencils, yes I should indeed. However, my fine motor skills really limit me in quite a lot of things, and so I will never become a proper pencil artist. However, it still enables me to more quickly draw poses and figures, so ill have more tries on it .

[Dr D]

Not sure how valid this is, but I would say don't try to complicate things with any specific, tense, pose just yet. Draw her in her most loose pose, and preferably one in which different pieces/limbs don't overlap each other. For extra practice, draw the same pose from multiple angles.

I also suggest you draw her nude, I mean you can omit somethings if you really can't or don't want to draw them, and you know what I'm talking about. I don't see a reason to add clothes to drawing a girl for anatomy practice. I mean, if you're going to draw clothes anyway, you'd usually draw the (nude) base first, and then add the clothes.

[lollige]

if you really can't

That problem is hard to explain, but in the end it always comes down to that I will have to draw a line 50 times before having the perfect one in it. And if you are drawing realistically, you need those perfect lines.
But even though I might not be able to produce something nice, it is a good practise.

Now as I said in the beginning of this topic: I would just like to be able to draw female characters. Preferably the same way as I draw males: Without much thinking, without anatomy studies, but just by doing the best I can without.
However, I understand you take things more seriously here on these forums, and so I will try my best on it. Also I understand that having someone in winter clothes is not the best way to learn this

About the pose you are right as well, but I have the intuative need to make everything I draw as interesting as possible . Ill get started with these two things, and maybe add a third in a more neutral position, maybe even rotating. I will of course include such things in my sketches as well

As for the nude thing: With the first I drew her cloth contours, with the second I drew the body contours. Would it really add if I add some volume to the whole thing before start adding those cloths? If you believe so, ill have a try on that, otherwise ill continue as I had in mind . I do know what you are talking about, yes 

Keep posting your wise words guys, ill keep on drawing!
Thanks
MrLollige