I had heard about flipping, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to turn it upside down. Part of the problem is just developing better judgment, and hopefully these approaches can help train me to see more critically. Thanks.
That's what happens during a crit or if you step away from a piece for several days... you have a "What was I THINKING??" moment.
It's a very old and standard trick, but it works great. If you hold your piece up to a mirror (or flip it in the digitalverse), and it looks all screwed up, it's all screwed up. You can also see if your composition/values hold up by turning the piece upside down. A strong composition will work right-side up or upside-down.
I had heard about flipping, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to turn it upside down. Part of the problem is just developing better judgment, and hopefully these approaches can help train me to see more critically. Thanks.
Thanks for the votes and comments everyone. Yes - I desperately need a good scanner (or need to finish well in advance of deadlines to hit Staples while they are open). My birthday is in September so let's hope that's what I get! Unfortunately I did not get this to the completion point that I wanted to. Hawkman was pretty rushed. I've since fixed his wings some, given him chest and arm hair, and added the All-Star Squadron logo. I am stuck on what to do for a background. I'll figure something out. I also wanted to add some grey-scale copics to give it solid depth. I'll continue finishing it up and I'll post the final version in when it's done. (probably next week).
Thank you tudore for a great challenge - I loved having the excuse to finally tackle some of these characters that I loved when I was younger! Thank you!! I'll wait until the poll closes and then I'll happily give more detailed C&C (seems inappropriate to do so before that to me).
Deisel: thanks for the offer; since nearly all of the possible votes are in, would you mind posting your C&C now?
TUDORE: I think the biggest problem IS the girl's head. However, there's some other minor things which could also be improved.
The black guy (forgive me, I'm not familiar with these characters!) has some strange things going on with his arms. The arm holding the cub doesn't look attached to his body.. or rather, it's attached in the wrong place. Kind of like you drew the body, drew the arm somewhere else, and then digitally moved the arm closer to the body and called it a day. That's not what you actually did, I'm sure, but that's simply what it looks like.
Why is this? Well, you drew the shoulder pad, then drew the arm coming out of the shoulder pad, but now his upper shoulder doesn't connect with the collar bone. In fact, if you take away the shoulder pad, I think you'll see what I mean.
His other arm: His hand looks really good! And so does the sheep... however, the rest of the dude's arm went missing o_o
Overall, the dude looks OK despite this, but he's in a really awkward pose, and I couldn't help but notice you managed to hide both his feet. Also, the cape doesn't really look attached to his body where it should be. It kind of looks like it's sewn in around his shoulder blades, instead of up top.
As for the girl, she's got a similar thing going on with her one arm holding the heart. If you take away the shoulder pad, you'd find her arm probably isn't attached to her body. Speaking of her body... well, it isn't BAD or WRONG, but it's not "typical" of a comic book heroine. And while I'd hate to enforce outdated sexist standards regarding how women are portrayed in popular media... it'd probably help if you slimmed her down just a tiny bit, and gave her chest just a little more shape and lift?
The big thing I think you should take away from this isn't "you made the girl's head too small". That's obvious and easily correctable. I would say that you need to do some body sketching first before you tackle a piece. No shoulder pads, no armor, no loose clothing. Just some very basic blue-line manikins... or heck, even stick figures! Just to make sure you have the parts of the body in the right places before you get thrown off by cuffs and pads and such
DIESEL: This looks good! I think what stops this from looking better is that it's a bit... stiff. The center lady's locks of hair, for instance.. they don't look natural. It's all jagged and pointy. Now i know anime gets away with this, but most times, hair is actually very curved or just in a straight line... the hair here is actually jutting off at angles in order to simulate curves.
There's also this blank space between Metal-man (?) and the dude in the foreground. We should be able to see the lady in the background, or at least the center lady's arm.
Shining Knight and... the... black guy...(I should know this, i really should). They look pretty good, but I feel their heads are kinda compressed. Not too much, but just noticeably. It might even be a trick of the camera angle?
Hawkman: I think his body is good, but I'll be honest, those wings are the weakest part of the piece. Feathered wings are a huuuuuge pain, I know! I've tried drawing Hawkgirl before and you're stuck either making blank, unconvincing wings, or a set of over-detailed messes. In this case, I think they're also out of perspective. Hawkman's body is pretty much perpendicular with the camera, but the wings aren't (however, i'll forgive this as it's something even professional artists do. I did a GIS for Hawkman and found a comic cover that has Hawkman in a similar pose, and yup, the artist drew his wings out of perspective, too! Heck, maybe -I'M- wrong!). You also seemed to have trouble figuring out how they should be shaped and where they should be going.
However, I'm not sure where to tell you to go to look for help on this. I did the aforementioned GIS to see if I could find any examples of how to do his wings "right", but I found a lot of -professional- pictures were also unconvincing! See, a Bird's wings aren't attachments on their backs, like Hawkman's wings: They're ARMS. And the top part of Hawkman's wings should be structured to reflect that. Do a search for "bird anatomy" and you'll see what I mean =)
-STEELE =^_^= \/,,
Pummel stats: LW; 11 Wins | 18 Losses | 6 KOs =|
Emperor, thank you for being so very thorough. The characters are Amazing Man and Fury. Probably the biggest issue was doing too much research on smaller details and not enough on core components.
For Amazing Man, I used surfers to try to put together the pose for him flying; I figure riding on water is the closest to riding on air. I didn't really have any reference for the arm holding the cub, so that was the major problem there. For the arm holding the sheep, initially I thought his bicep would be covered by the sheep and not peeking out the side, but I think this was something where I needed to do more research.
I was very conscious about his feet being covered, and so I changed Fury's position so her feet would be visible. I wanted it to be clear that I wasn't avoiding drawing feet.
I did more than a few rounds of sketching to work out the composition, but obviously I needed to be more thorough and actually working out the mechanics of the positions.
Aaaah! So that's it!
Don't use surfers for reference for flying! Surfing is like the OPPOSITE of flying, and here's why:
When surfing or skateboarding or snowboarding, people have to put a lot of focus on their legs. They have to constantly readjust their balance so they DON'T go flying! If you want some practical experience with this without the risk of getting hurt too badly, get on a bus or subway car, just stand in the isle, and don't hang on to anything while the vehicle is in motion. Notice how much effort you have to keep on your legs and how you have to slightly tilt your body away from where you're going to keep your balance.
When a character flies, they're NOT using their legs at all. Now, superhero physics is a wonky thing, but the constant seems to be that the force used to propel a character comes from their torso, not their legs or feet (Except maybe Iron man, who uses his feet and his hands). They tend to let their feet hang behind them, or just dangle below them if they're hovering. Once in a great while, a flying character will "skid" to a stop using their feet (as if they were running on the ground), but this is rare.
Glad to be of help =)
-STEELE =^_^= \/,,
Pummel stats: LW; 11 Wins | 18 Losses | 6 KOs =|
Emperorsteele - Thank you very much for the C&C. Liberty Belle's hair is a bit kinky; I'm definitely still working on how to get hair to look full and healthy and beautiful. The space between Robotman and Steele is just lack of time. I ran out of time and didn't finish the piece. As soon as I posted I kept working on the piece and filling in this was one of the first things I did. I think Shining Knight and Amazing Man's (that's his name!) faces are okay, but the camera angle did squish them a little. Amazing Man's chin was a touch off center but I fixed it after posting. His face is a touch wider than the "normal" hero face, but I'm trying to make sure that my characters look distinct and different (rather than the same male face with different costumes as many people do). I absolutely agree with you on Hawkman. I started drawing him at about 11PM that night and he was rushed and not fully fleshed out. I've since touched up his figure, and changed the wings a bit. I ran into exactly the same issue that you found - all of the art references of him show his wings working fairly differently from how birds' wings work. I can't claim to understand exactly how they are attached or work, but I tried to stay consistent with the renditions that I found (and have read for years). I wasn't at all happy about the way the top (bone?) of the wing was drawn and changed it significantly after posting. I still haven't figured out what the "right" way to do the feathers would be. I'm going to continue tweaking this for a few days, then get a good scan and post it in the finished art section. If I'm really lucky Loston will give me a lesson in how to draw feathers well. I do REALLY appreciate the detailed critique. Thank you!
Tudore - sorry that I didn't respond until now; this is the first time I've sat at a keyboard since your request. I've messaged you my detailed critique. Thanks again for a great competition this month.
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