[C+C] Lounging

[Tourist]

I've posted a lot of crits recently but not much art.  Here's something I'm working on.



The lines are not pixel art, it's vector art that has been resized, which is why it's jagged and has the spots here and there.

Lessons learned so far:
I think I need to practice basic anatomy more.  I definitely need to spend more time on the line work and defining the planes of the face before jumping into detail.

Odd angles (the center lines here are 2:3) are tough.

Working on individual sections in detail before covering the larger areas doesn't work for me that well (yet?).  Plenty of rework to tweak one detailed area to get it to match a different detailed area.

Reducing the forehead and finishing the work on the jaw/mouth should make it look more feminine.  I planned to go back and rework the forehead shading when I got to the hair, but right now the overall distortions in anatomy (the eyes, nose) are bugging me.  Is this piece salvageable?

Here's an animated gif of several stages, FWIW.



C+C welcome,
Tourist

[QuaziGNRLnose]

this is really big and something pixel art's not really suited to, my first piece was a dither mess as well and i never finished.

im saying u shouldn't go overboard trying to create smoothness in big pieces for pixel art. and that doesn't go for everything of course, but for drawing a face, id suggest a more stylized approach, like that "leader of the blades" picture that was made quite some time ago. the piece itself is quite nice, but its just not a very good subject and/or size and/or approach for a pixel art piece. why not just use brushes and have a much nicer piece 100x faster? try to think of a piece that would be better suited to the medium. or you can continue on this and probably never finish.

[Pixelized]

this is really big and something pixel art's not really suited to, my first piece was a dither mess as well and i never finished.

im saying u shouldn't go overboard trying to create smoothness in big pieces for pixel art. and that doesn't go for everything of course, but for drawing a face, id suggest a more stylized approach, like that "leader of the blades" picture that was made quite some time ago. the piece itself is quite nice, but its just not a very good subject and/or size and/or approach for a pixel art piece. why not just use brushes and have a much nicer piece 100x faster? try to think of a piece that would be better suited to the medium. or you can continue on this and probably never finish.

Working with the limitations of pixel art is half the fun! Just because it's harder then loading up painter doesn't mean you should switch mediums... don't give up just cause its harder! lol. Besides, that looks pretty damn cool in my opinion.

On to the OP. It looks pretty good, but the nose seems like its floating on her face. I believe its the dark line at the bottom, but it may just be me lol. Also, she seems incredibly bored. Just layin there like that for no particular reason? A smirk, smile, half smile, wink, blush, grimace or any sort of expression would add much more character to your uh.... character Keep up the good work, can't wait to see a finished product

[EvilEye]

Not trying to rag on you here but the way your doing this is the worst possible way you could draw something. It's a good thing you posted your progress step by step so one of us could catch it.

Doing it in pieces ( first an eye, then the nose, then a cheek ) will make it look like a picture put together from magazine clippings.

You have to do the whole thing in steps. First the basic form, then the basic shadows, then you refine things more and more until your finished.

This doesn't completely apply to pixel art, but here is a tutorial on figure drawing that will kind of give you the right idea:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14035

[Tourist]

Doing it in pieces ( first an eye, then the nose, then a cheek ) will make it look like a picture put together from magazine clippings.

You have to do the whole thing in steps. First the basic form, then the basic shadows, then you refine things more and more until your finished.

Aha!  That's exactly the problem.  I knew something was wrong, but could not put it into words.  It was definitely looking like disjointed pieces.

Excellent criticism and thank you for the help (and the link)!

This piece will get shelved, though I may reuse the starting lines at some point.


Quazi:  You're right, the size makes it very slow to create.  If I rebuild this piece it will be at half the current size.

Pixelized: Thanks for the enthusiasm.  I agree that this piece was lacking in character, that's a good reminder not to focus only on the shading.

Thanks all,
Tourist