Lea
Lea
Earth
@pkrautter54
I like your legs, maybe photographing a model in the same pose would help.
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Lea
2yr
Thankyou! Yeah i guess I'll have to find some references😂
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@melotea
Okay sorry I don't really have advices but XIAOOOO MY AN-EMO BOI....sorry.I think that overall the anatomy is really good,the legs are fine but I think that it's the foot which give this off-vibe ? The left feet is too small and the shape ain't right try to maybe study the shape and how is construct the feet.I really don't have critiques about the legs sorry TT maybe try to move or rotate the left leg upwards ?
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Lea
2yr
Yess xiaoooo 👀 thankyou for the advice mm i feel like the right foot feels more off but im not sure either 😂 but yea maybe its too small thanks!! Im gonna look for more references
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Lea
I'm trying to draw this character in this pose (legs are half crossed) but I feel like some parts of the anatomy looks "off" but what I'm struggling with the most are the legs does anyone knows what's wrong or how are the legs supposed to look like?
Lea
hey! I'm not sure what a oleo technique is but i hope some of my critiques might help, first your background looks uneven and thin using more paint will help cover it up and hind the messy brush strokes. from what i see you seem to be using a strong lighting with a bit or orange back light (sorry if I'm wrong) but i think your darks are a bit too dark since you seem to be using pure black, maybe mix it with a bit of a blue (since warm lighting=cold shadows) to tone it down or add more orange lighting transition from the back light (something like in the pic below) another thing i see is the highlights on the face seems a little grey. here's a quick paint over i did to make my explanation more understandable, overall you painting looks awesome and keep experimenting with strong lighting! hope it helps
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Liandro
@Lea There's this thing Matt Kohr (the guy from http://www.ctrlpaint.com) calls "contrast creep" - it's when the spots of value contrast are spread across the piece without any stronger concentrated area, which results in the feeling that the piece looks distracting or lacks a focal point. In one of his courses, he shows an example of this with a painting of his own, then shows a remake of the same painting fixing that issue and achieving a more balanced global contrast (see first image attached). In your painting (which is actually pretty cool already!), when I squint my eyes and look at it, that's exactly what I notice: a lot of bright little areas that kind of diffuse the eye from a defined focal point (just like @Jan D. also noticed). An effective way to solve this would be to organize your composition into "areas of value": each part of the painting could prioritize a certain range of the value spectrum so that the different planes or spaces wouldn't compete with each other, and the overall contrast could feel more balanced and organized. In the second image I attached, there's a couple of examples of paintings where this technique is properly used: the one on the top is by Caravaggio, - although its crops with the overlaying histogram were also taken from one of Matt Kohr's courses - and the one on the bottom is by the man himself @Stan Prokopenko. An interesting thing to notice is that, in both paintings, although the value range is neatly organized according to the planes or spaces in the composition, the part of the painting where there is actually a wide value range (where lights and darks contrast more strongly) is the focal point (in Stan's painting, the bears; and in Caravaggio's, the face of the character to the left). Hope this helps! Hope it gives you insights on ways to improve your work. Let me know in case you have questions! Best regards o/
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Lea
3yr
thankyou so much!! I've learnt a bit from ctrl paint but i haven't explored most of the content ill check it out. , and also thankyou so much for the very helpful value arrangement explanation i understand it better now, ill try to attempt a better chiaroscuro lighting by arranging my values better!
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Synthia Lillendandie
You can actually test out a simple value scheme of darks - midtone - lights in the thumbnail stage. If it reads well small, it will read well at full size. Try to simplify your scene, both in terms of shape and lighting, and it becomes a lot easier to figure out. Some artists also choose to do an under painting in gray or one color. Personally, I work in grayscale, rendering out all my values + edges and then use gradient maps to color. As for the hand, I think it's probably an anatomy / perspective / foreshortening issue? I'm not really sure what she's doing with the arm, so it's hard for me to give any advice. What might help is a reference. You can take a picture of yourself, use a 3d app or buy a ref pack. That's what helps me when I get stuck with a pose.
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Lea
3yr
aaaa i never really thought of making thumbnails, ill add thumbnail drawings to my process it seems super helpful ! and for the hand im not too sure either ill look up some references thankyou so much!
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Jan D.
oh tell me about it. half the stuff I do, lives in the bottom half of the histogram:D I'd say you could try to use the values to direct the eye to the focal point a little more? Right now I get a little distracted by all the bright patches. Maybe using some strong atmosphere/ fog would work nice in this piece? Looks nice tho! Love the mood!:)
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Lea
3yr
oyeah i guess the messy bright values is kind of distracting thankyou!! i didn't notice it before, and for the fog idea ill definitely try it out !
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Lea
hey! really nice drawing i can see that you're trying to group the shadow shapes but i think what your missing is to use more dark values! your darkest values are at the hair, i think you can use some dark values around like on the neck to separate it from the head for a clearer read, or maybe some under the eyelids.(you can use the asaro head to learn more about it) another thing is the white of the eyeball is never pure while so i suggest you to tone it down using a little bit of grey. another thing i noticed is the lack of details in the ears you can look up some reference to help you visualize the details! since this drawing is from a year ago im sure your skills have improved beyond but i hope the critique is still helpful to you!
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Lea
So ive been trying to improve on my digital painting but I feel like i have a hard time in deciding the right values and have the tendency to go too dark like a piece i did here also im not sure about the hands something just feels off about it. Im trying to improve in painting characters in snowy scenes thankyou!
Dan B
Nice work. First I would ask where you feel you struggled? I think the picture looks a little stuck between realism and cartoon, so sort of looks flat as mentioned by Dylan. If you want it to be more cartoon/Manga style, I would add more sharpness and line variation and outlines. If more towards realism, I would focus on enhancing lights and shadows to bring the contrast up and accentuate forms more. I hope this is useful!
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Lea
3yr
i was kind of struggling with her arm and i feel like the illustration is lacking but im not sure why, and yeah i was trying out a semi realistic anime style thankyou so much on your tips ill try them out!
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Dylan Gabriel
This looks really cool overall. I think the lighting in the hair is flattening it out more that defining it. The cuffs on the sleeves and the bones on the staff could use some harder edges and more defined shapes. Also, her right arm would look less like a tube with a little more of a deltoid. You can zoom out and look at the image as a small thumbnail to see what's popping out and what looks flat. Nice work though!
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Lea
3yr
thankyou!! didn't realize the hair shading was holding back the illustration. and ill work on the edges haha XD i was struggling with her right arm a lot turns out she's missing a bit of deltoid thankyou so much for that! ill take notes on your tips
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Lea
added a new topic
Any critiques?
3yr
I made this fanart to practice digital art what lacking parts should i work on to improve my digital art skills or any part of this illustration? Thankyou so much!!^^
Lea
Hey there really nice drawings! I can see that you are tying to capture the line of action already! I think what your missing is to be more loose and focus more on the 'movement' of the pose first! You can do this by doing quick gesture drawing which is really effective for beginners since it helps to practice a lot of poses in a short amount of time!  I think you can try it by capturing the essence of a pose  Love life drawing as great videos about gesture you should check it out this is lone of the vids that i think will help you https://youtu.be/5bw3BW4Q6VM Proko's and mike mattesi video about gesture will also help you understand more about gesture https://youtu.be/IyuCq6VWVeA Hope this helps!
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jaime rubio
Asked for help
looking for critique, does the body look fine? i feel like posing gets me anxious if the body will look fine yknow (or the weight, does it look like there's some weight and feels semi-real)
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Lea
3yr
Hey there nice drawing! I really like ur concept and draftsmanship! Your work can use a bit more anatomy tho i suggest watching proko's vid on robo bean and landmarks since theyre pretty important. I think the main problem here is that the ribcage is too close to the pelvis (even though its slighty foreshortened its a bit too exaggerated) Posing at forst can be really tough so i suggest you to find some simmilar reffrences to help you ! Heres a reff that i found that is pretty close to the pose ur drawing and what i think the body could look like (the green lines are the legs which i have not studied yet so dont follow it too much since it might be innacurate) My last tip is for you to post your work at the proko community section since it will make more people find you easily! Hope this helps^^
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mac hewitt
Hey Lea, I'm a acrylic partner myself. You have done a really good job so far. I think your piece looks a lot cooler than the reference image. I think this is possibly due to you mixing white to lighten up a colour. This isn't necessarily bad. But in the reference image all the lights are yellow. What you can do to fix this, is to mix a yellow (preferably transparent) with a glazing medium and do some thin transparent layers over everything. This will lighten your darks, so you might want to mix burnt sienna and burnt umber with a glazing medium and paint the dark areas again. Try mixing 1 part colour, 2 parts medium and don't put too much on at a time, do thin coats. Don't worry they dry really quickly. You want to prevent high peaks when you are working with such transparent colours, cause those peaks will be more opaque. Anyway hope this helps, and look forward to seeing the results. Good luck
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Lea
3yr
Thankyou so much for the useful tip! I didn't know you can also glaze with acrylics i'll try it out thankyou!!!
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Izak van Langevelde
Yes, the lighting is off, but your reference is too dark to be useful. This is not really an acrylics issue...
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Lea
3yr
Ah i see thanks!
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Lea
Painted this potrait a while back using acrylic i kind of struggle mostly with painting the hair my brush strokes just doesn't seem to define it well (they look like spaghetti (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻),another thing i noticed is the lighting looks a bit wrong(?) Does anyone have any tips to fix these problems? If you have any other critiques for the painting feel free to drop down too !
Lea
really nice work! love how you group the shadow shapes ! the face structure is also clear here, what i think u can do to improve it is be braver to add darker values to some parts of ur drawing like the eyelids and the shadows in her cheekbones! you should checkout Stephen Bauman's courses or videos since he does and teaches some great portrait another thing i noticed is that the hair lacked structure i think u can learn a lot from this vid too How to Draw Hair - YouTube by proko hope this helps!
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Lea
really nice! im also still struggling to get used to digital art myself so im not the best at it and only finished like a couple vids from ctrl paint XD it does feel a bit tedious but once you understand it will be fun! i suggest u to watch ctrl paint's vids on brush control since i think ur work can definitely boost a lot with it and another tip is to paint over ur sketch layer to give it a cleaner look and more rendered feel to it! i really like ur drawing concept and color choice here! really nice work i hope some of my tip might help ^^
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Lea
hello i just had the time to do this today! so i hope its okay even though I'm a couple days late ^^ i learnt some stuff from the video but i think some parts of my portrait drawing it is still lacking ,I'm not sure what is so im hoping to get a critique! thankyou so much for the livestream and to the proko team!!!
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