Zatanna

[joshuahood]

http://joshuahood.com/comics/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/zatanna.jpg

Her face seems a little flat to me, but otherwise fun.

[Orphangrinder]

Looks pretty great, man! Definitely looks like pro work to me. Of course, my idea of pro work, and the big two's idea of pro work may not necessarily coincide. Aside from Zatanna herself, I feel like you actually bear some similarities to Jeff Smith. If you took her out of the picture, this almost looks like something that could've been in Bone.
As for her face being flat, I think her eyes are a bit too far forward on her head, toward the bridge of her nose.

I love the way you simplify and design the shapes in your drawings, even within the context of a more "realistic" style. Do you have any guiding principles you use? For example, the simplified silhouettes of her hands, the flattened-raindrop shape of the monster's head, or the spacing of the folds in the curtain. I've got a lot of my own ideas on the subject, but I never get a chance to talk to anyone else about it. :)

[joshuahood]

Do you have any guiding principles you use? For example, the simplified silhouettes of her hands, the flattened-raindrop shape of the monster's head, or the spacing of the folds in the curtain. I've got a lot of my own ideas on the subject, but I never get a chance to talk to anyone else about it. :)

I don't know that I have any guiding principals when it comes to things like that. I do know that I've been trying to emulate the British sensibility when it comes to line work over the last little bit. It seems that creating a realistic shape and then filling it with lines rendering detail is the sort their shorthand. Alan Davis, Bryan Hitch, Frank Quitely, and the french Olivier Coipel. I think now I'm trying to constantly do less with more, but my tendency is to over render so I have a long way to go.

What are your thoughts on this topic?

[Orphangrinder]

Well, a lot of what I think I know about it comes from animation. Actually, more from animation educational sources than from actual animation. Design principles like straights against curves, areas of detail vs. areas of space, opposing curves, avoiding parallels, and stuff like that. For anything that's naturalistic and repetitive, like hair or trees or grass, I tend to break the shapes and lines up by a sort of halfass system of subdivided thirds.

It's hard to explain, and it's not nearly as technical as it sounds -- it's just something I keep in mind that helps me get a nice design to my shapes, without too much symmetry and regularly-spaced linework where it's not appropriate. I sometimes think about making a little tutorial about this stuff, but I'm not sure I understand the ideas well enough myself to try to teach it to anyone.

Your work seems to display a strong grasp of design principles, so if it's not something that you think about consciously, you might just have an intuition for it, or have developed these systems without really being conscious of it. I've only been drawing comics for a few years, so I'm still really figuring this stuff out.

[hadesillustrations]

This is a wonderful piece - both funny and fun to look at. The bunny is awesome and Zatanna's expression is excellent.

Some things to work on:
Zatanna is leggy and her legs in this pic seem rather short - her knees should be lower. It could be that her right arm is too long as well, or maybe a combination of the two. If her arm was at rest her fingers would reach her knee. Point is, watch your proportions.

Everyone, including myself, has a tendency to fixate on drawing Zatanna's wonderful cleavage, but tuxedo jackets don't just flop aside to let the boobs free - the jacket should be covering those puppies a bit more and, when done correctly, even covered boobs look sexy.

You have her ear peeking out from her hair - Zatanna's hair is rather voluminous so I feel it would easily cover her ear. It just looks odd poking out.

The top hat looks cartoony, the way it narrows towards the brim. It seems this was intentional and not an error, but the rest of the realistic look you have going on makes the cartoony hat seem out of place.

Her right arm should have some folds in the sleeve. Find ref for this or put on a suit jacket and look in a mirror. It's a small thing that can add a greater sense of realism. I'm not a photo-realistic artist by any means, but that sleeve fold (just a few lines, really) will put the viewer more into the scene.

If you dig the brit artists, check out Bolland's website. He has several Zatanna pics on there and they're fantastic. Overall, I still like this piece. I know it seems like I shredded your work with this crit, but it's only because I like it so much and I want to see more work from you. PJ has helped me grow by leaps and bounds as an artist through detailed crits from several posters. I hope this crit helps you the same way.

[shannonh]

Left arm is too short. From shoulder to elbow should be longer. From elbo to wrist should be shorter (for foreshortening) It's a bit busy between upper torso and the beast. To fix that, I would pull the beast further out of the hat and have the beast eye to eye level with Zantana. That would alleviate the busyness of that area. Also, putting them eye to eye would definitely pump up the impact of the piece.

It looks great like it is, but would look 10xs better with the changes.

[Toddoss]

Hey Great picture!! It could use some tweaks but as it is it's very successful.

Hope you dont mind but I did some draw-overs to show you how I would tweak the face. It seemed quicker than typing up a bunch of jibberish. All the tweaks were minor, things like: shrink eye and move back a hair, move teeth back so lips can wrap around, remove useless face halo which will flatten it, added some cheekbone on opposite side and moved the pupils forward. I think thats all. I put a before and after next to each other so you can see. :)

Hope it helps. I really like this pic and would like to take a stab at maybe coloring it if thats alright?

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g23/Toddoss/NOT%20MY%20STUFF/zatannaedit.jpg

[joshuahood]

I really like this pic and would like to take a stab at maybe coloring it if thats alright?

If you want to color my stuff or ink my penciled pages, knock yourself out. And this goes for everybody. I'd love to see what you produce.