I like the concept, and your bears really feel like bears. I will give you my opinions: 1) the connection of the big bear's arms to the body feels weird. I'd make sure you're drawing through the form and thinking about where the ribcage is, making sure the shoulder joints are in the right place. I'd also do some ear studies on how the ears connect to the skull. The shapes of them look great, but they look like flat pieces of paper, as if the back of the ear is missing. In reality, ears are gonna have more of a bowl shape to catch the sound, like a cupped hand. 2) just a personal take on the acting. If I had my arm transformed into a crab arm, I wouldn't be looking at the crab with a bear arm, I'd be looking at my own arm and freaking out. Try getting into the pose and film yourself, and use freeze frames from the video. Really pretend you're that bear and FREAK OUT!!! 3) The little bear's hat is very symmetrical. I think you could push the pinch in the back and stretch in the front, and perhaps attach it to the shape of the head by giving it more of a brim (maybe just grab some reference. His staff also seems a little under designed. Is it an old wooden staff or a sleek metal staff? It feels more like a line than a 3d form. His legs are also very parallel. I'd taper them or curve the front side to make it a more dynamic shape. Finally, his feet are 100% horizontal and parallel to the picture plane, which tends to flatten out the pose 4) You could really push the idea with constrast. What if the limbs retained their original size? A little crab with a giant paw that is way too big for it. Maybe he LOVES this giant paw and holds it up proudly, admiringly, thinking of how it will make him popular with the lady crabs. But the bear looks in horror at the stumpy little crab claw sticking out of his shoulder.

This is really cool did the bear catch some sort of disease from the crab lol?

I love it, that's really creative!

Ah, yes! These are great! It's so crazy how much movement comes across!!

Hey Elias, The one thing I noticed is that the two boys are not intergraded into the scene because you are having the light abruptly stop, and they are not being effected by it. The same goes for the trees and bushes in the foreground. By adding some rim light, it would help make everything look like it's in the same scene and will separate the boys from the background a little better. I did a very crude sketch to show you what I mean, I hope this helps :)

You nailed it. Period. Whatever you did, do it again. Post it and see if you nail it again.

You HAVE to get rid of it. I'll put it in a few ways to get the idea across. And I don't mean any disrespect or malice. I really want to help and understand the issue. 1. It will never be perfect. Period. Any piece you do, will NEVER feel good enough. Even if it's great. Hurts to hear, but you have to get used to it. 2. You won't grow or learn if you don't make mistakes. You learn from what you messed up on, and you try to work that it next time! 3. You can spend hours and hours "perfecting" a bad piece, and all you'll be doing will be polishing a turd. You have to know when to stop. If it's not working, it's not working. 4. The more work you do, the more you have to look at and you will start to see patterns of what you do wrong AND what you do right. This will help you know what yo improve on, and what to be proud of. Adopt the saying "Finished, not perfect" I got that from Jake Parker. Repeat it when you feel like your piece is failing. I do. Good luck

The drawing basics. I'm going through it right now. I think it'll be a good foundation. Since it's ongoing and you have to wait for new stuff if you catch up, I'd suggest supplementing with material from Marco Bucci too. You're already pretty good. You also need to consider what type of work you wanna do. I mean, your stuff is more "cartoony" so idk if you would care to learn from say Richard Schmid. I'd recommend it since he's so good, but if his stuff doesn't really apply to you now or ever, then maybe no. At least not at the moment. So, what type of stuff you trying to do? That's the question!

Okay Elias, I'm going to start with what's good: The background is awesome, it really provides some nice mood. It also really retreats back away from the subject. The soft edge of the mountains is a nice touch. The pose feels really natural and confident. The wolf looks cool and is sitting in space very convincingly. Okay, now I'm going to hammer you :) The skin is getting lost in the sky. All of your lines are converging on her crotch, causing me to look there instead of her face. The wolfs nose is tangent with her leg. The colors around her face (focal point) should be more saturated to draw attention there. Over all, nice work. Just make sure you are paying attention to composition and where to lead the eye. Keep it up :)

This looks great! What I would advise is that you make your idea more clear. "Moody" can mean a lot of things! Dark? Dramatic? Suspenful? This painting gives me "scary/suspenful" vibes. Going off this, I made some suggestion on a paintover. Whati did was modify some values, edges, and darkened the eyes to add more suspense. These are only suggestions! You do what you want! Great work

Good start! Overall it's good. Watch out for the reflected light in the shadows though. It's not as bright as you think. Squint your eyes and you'll see that the shadows are closer in value than it appears. Hope that helps!

Good work here. I agree that the proportions are off. When doing portraits you have to measure. The proportions will always be slightly off, it's impossible to be 100%. BUT they should be close enough. The shadows are definitely too light. I would suggest turning the picture black and white so you can compare values better. When youre good at that, you can work from colored pictures and then turn them black and white to analyze how you did. As far as general charcoal advice.. experiment and learn about the different kinds of charcoal to see what you like and what they do. Vine charcoal, compressed, powder, charcoal pencils. They're all tools and they all creat different marks. You can combine them or use them alone. Explore and best of luck to you!

Looking great! Solid study. I would suggest working on simplifying a bit. Maybe creating a more clear separation from light and shadow. I think the core shadow is super dark in comparison to the the rest. This makes it a little hard to read. The anatomy itself looks great though! You're on the right track!

Awesome awesome work! The mallet really gives it that extra "umph" for me! I'm loving it! The shape design is great too 👍