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Doing an Oddworld-related art trade with someone on dA, they had me do their steef cub FC and some fuzzles:
-snip-
Mostly looking for feedback on the lines and shading on this one, I'm not sure if I like it or not. Yes I completely half-assed the background.
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Alright, so, this one took me a while to form a cohesive critique
mostly because im distracted
The lines are still weak, HOWEVER, they're already looking better than they did when you started this thread. So, you're heading in the right direction and there's not much I can say for the time being except for: keep experimenting. This picture looks like it should have either had thicker lines with varying line weights, or should have been completely "lineless" with a heavier emphasis on form and textures.
You know those really annoying sphere and cube and what not practice paintings and drawings etc? The ones with a heavy focus on the values along it's form? Do those. Lots of those. Do one from life, do one from a flat reference outlining what values would go where, do two from different light sources, then do a bunch from memory until it's beat into your brain.
And I definitely would like to see a couple pieces from you focusing entirely on lineart. I don't just mean an outline of a figure, I mean using lines to tell the story behind the picture. Give the lines a life of their own. Make them bold, but not blocky. Try to focus on one of those before the other but have fun with it because I can tell you really want to improve and I KNOW if you keep on how you're going you'll have work of a high enough quality to consider yourself a professional illustrator.
No, that wasn't flattery nor was it an exaggeration. I've seen people at half your skill level turn into amazing artists and illustrators within months.
You definitely need to learn how to handle fabric, and the steef's facial expression is a little disappointing given your previous steef facial expressions. It falls flat, the steef looks like their gazing aimlessly instead of at the sky/the fuzzle on it's head like I pressume you wanted. I think some clouds or "birds" in the distance would have helped populate the image a little more.
The fuzzle on the right side of the swing looks squashed, and the swing looks like it's floating. Magical swings? Hell yes. It would have been more effective if you had shown tree branches coming in from some direction, or more trees in the background, or even half ass playground equipment, etc... There are loads of ways that problem can be remedied.
Digressing to form again, I'm noticing you're shying away from using dark-darks and light-lights. Don't be afraid to go all out with shading. Just remember, no matter what, you can always fix your mistakes with art. Period. Get really dark where a figure should be casting a shadow, or where light wouldn't be touching at all. Get really bright (not in this specific picture lmao) where the light is hitting an object head on.
Also, a fun fact you'll learn when you study form: Shadows are usually highly saturated and contain the complimentary colour of the objects main colour. I'm noticing for the most part you're keeping things about the same level of saturation all throughout. I can see some slight variation in the colours used, but it's not enough to give a "natural" feel.
I think that's it for now. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK