JDB's Sketchbook

[JDB1987]

Hi Penciljack,

My name is James and I am an aspiring comic book creator. I have been a long time lurker on this forum in the past year or so. I figured it was time to come out of the shell and accept advice, criticism on how to get better as a penciler. Thank you for your time and cooperation.
Here is a Phoenix Variation I did earlier this week.

[Spooko]

I can tell that you have an idea of what is going on artistically, but without reference, this does not look like the piece of a person who is really trying to grow. What I mean by this is, if you have been lurking here for a year or so, you surely have seen many pieces of art of this level. Anything that has been said about those pieces of work applies to yours as well, so I will say this to you, challenge yourself based on what you have seen that you know is REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD, above and beyond what you can do, throw out stuff that isn't good for what you can do, but pushes your boundaries and get advice on that, then you can get good.

[JDB1987]

Hi Spooko,

Thank you so much for your time and advice, I truly appreciate it. I understand and will take what you've said. Can you elaborate and give me some details please? Sorry for the trouble in advance.

[Senji]

Good start man but Spooko is right, there are a few glaring anatomy issues. A couple that really need looking into is her right leg (the one crossing in front) its too far down and out, you gotta tuck that in quite a bits. Her left arm is "ok", forearm might be a bit too long/upperarm too short but the other arm really needs tinkering, its has the same problem as the other arm but a lot shorter and I can't tell if you were going for an angled in-your-face perspective or just drew them short.

Solid effort regardless, keep it up and welcome to PencilJack!

[Spooko]

Fwew! ^_^

Here's something more elaborate then, when you are drawing figures like that, imagine them in a 3-dimensional cylinder (or draw the cylinder itself around them). Do what you can to establish that your figures eat up 3-dimensional space

[JDB1987]

Thank you Senji! I will redraw and fix that. Haha yeah I was trying to go for that fist kind of at you, for the fire forming up type deal. I will work on it and hopefully show you in due time the corrections. Thanks again for taking your time and pointing out the flaws I couldn't see.

[JDB1987]

haha sorry, what is fwew!?
I see Spooko, i normally do the figure as a cube/sphere type, I'm gonna take your advice and do that for all the body parts to see if that helps too. I just started doing the 3/4, so I'm still trying to understand the concept of how each muscle is in relation to eachother after each shift.
Another one of my trouble areas is the female chest plate that links to their deltoids when trying to convey action.

[JDB1987]

[JDB1987]

[JDB1987]

Grace from Soulfire