Let me critique your work!

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Hello all artists! I'm a practicing art student, traditional media only (since I don't have a good computer), and I want to do some critique of people's artwork. I'd prefer to keep this thread artwork only, that one draws with their hand, instead of image manipulation or other forms of visual art. I like to do critiques because it not only helps the critiqued person improve, but it can improve my understanding of common mistakes and how to improve them. If you want a critique, you can leave just one image in this thread, give me multiple images, or link me to an art account somewhere. All skill levels are welcome and encouraged! You can also ask for just some basic feedback, if you don't want a full paragraph on something. Give me anything!

Also, the reason I've used the word critique in place of criticize is that criticism focuses on the faults in something, while a critique is just a detailed evaluation. I will focus on faults, but I'll also do my best to give feedback on the strengths in your work and potential you have. Any tbt tips are appreciated :lemon:

Here's an expanding list of resources- feel free to suggest some in replies:
Finding photo references- self explanatory
1. My favorite! https://line-of-action.com/ - My personal favorite tool for finding references to draw from- especially gesture drawing. You pick what type of pictures you want, then the site will show you a timed slideshow of them, helping you strengthen your observational drawing skills. Fair warning- if you're using the figure drawing mode, there could be nudity if you don't filter it out. Pay attention to what you click if you're not in a private environment! Luckily, the site makes it very easy to get what you want.
Color theory- learn about color
1. https://drawpaintacademy.com/a-comprehensive-guide-to-color-theory-for-artists/ - An article guiding you in the basic necessities of color. I heavily recommend reading this. The website has a bit of pop-ups begging you to join their email list and a few ads, but it's fine besides that.
2. https://thevirtualinstructor.com/Color.html Rehashes the same info as the last source, but at the bottom of the page contains a handy vocabulary list.
Famous fine artists-
2d Animation and cartoons-
3d animation-
Using a sketchbook- learn how to make and improve your sketchbook
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL26HRzr1OeLxF3f5IeQssNOGPc5esWhgh Here's I playlist I found with lots of calarts accepted sketchbook tours. Some of these sketchbooks aren't very good, but most of them are masterful and can give you inspiration for your own.
 
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Dedenne2 said:
just do the most recent ones :)
Click to expand...

Alright! Here I go.
1. Your figures are all extremely blocky. There isn't any understanding of human form in your work. In order to fix this, you should draw more from what you see, rather than what you think, if that makes sense. In order to better understand the body, do gesture drawings every day for a few minutes. These can be from life or pictures, but DON'T use anything other than real people. Copying other drawings, or using a desktop manekin will not help you understand how muscle wraps around bone. The best references for gesture drawing I use are my teachers during school, people sitting across from me, and good photos online. Here's one of my favorite sites for gesture drawing, and I heavily recommend you at least try it out: https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/
2. All you draw is front-facing people. This can be a major roadblock in improving your work. Draw literally anything else. Try drawing cars you see, pencils, desks, or anything else in day to day life.
3. You tend to re-hash a lot of things that look the same in your work. Every eye you draw looks the same, like a noob try at drawing anime. Try to be more realistic.
4. Alright, here's something I like that you did: Your duck! The color palette is solid, and it has the cartoony likeness of an actual duck.
5. Your colors in most of your work stand out way too much. One thing I've recently learned through watching a video on Splatoon, actually, is that you need to not only have variation in the hue of your colors, but the shade and tint as well. Hue is the rainbow scale and shade/tint is the black and white scale. Here's the video, you should skip to the splatoon part to see what I'm talking about, it has a lot of good information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Tx5vbnH0M
In summary, in order to improve, stop drawing without reference and change up what you draw. Don't be afraid to try new things, instead of sticking to the "safe" frontward facing cartoon character.
 
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Hey, I'd love if you'd critique this and some of the newer stuff on here. I'm trying to experiment more with poses and stuff since I always seem to end up drawing the same pose
 
Pearls said:
Hey, I'd love if you'd critique this and some of the newer stuff on here. I'm trying to experiment more with poses and stuff since I always seem to end up drawing the same pose
Click to expand...

Hello! I'm at school right now, and my school network has blacklisted deviantart. I'll see if I can give you critique when I come home later in the day.
 
Pearls said:
Hey, I'd love if you'd critique this and some of the newer stuff on here. I'm trying to experiment more with poses and stuff since I always seem to end up drawing the same pose
Click to expand...

Alright, I'll start with the one specific piece you linked, since that'll be easier.
1. The colors you chose for this piece all work very well! It's very pleasing to the eye. One thing I would change is the stark brightness of the dress and jacket- it doesn't work well with the rest of the piece.
2. The lighting doesn't make sense. There's no clear light source, and the lights in the background don't affect the shadows of the body.
3. The face isn't very expressive at all. It's just slightly sad with a lot of tears. When people cry, their face wrinkles a lot, their bottom eyelid curls up, and their cheeks are puffy. I'll be adding some links later to further expand on this.
Alright, here's some general critique
1. Your colors are all really nice on the eyes, and you've learned how to use less neon colors as time goes on.
2. On your "look at these losers" piece, the left girl's arm is unrealistically long. Otherwise, it's one of your better works.
3. I won't focus on telling you about your reuse of the same pose, since you already acknowledged that. On your other pieces, everybody is very long and stiff. Draw real people more.

Sorry about the not very detailed crit. End of a long day.

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Kammm said:
I haven't been drawing much lately but I would appreciate some critique to get me more motivated (:) all my art is rlly chibi-like so I understand it may be weird to critique my style but I'll still appreciate it!!
Links to some recent arts:
http://colorslive.com/details/3987683
http://colorslive.com/details/3996519
http://colorslive.com/details/4054729
Click to expand...

Your stuff is real cute, to start.
1. The eyes are uncanny compared to the rest of the piece. It's obvious you put a lot more time into the eyes than the rest of it. Either make the eyes more simple, or spend a lot more time rendering the rest of the piece.
2. In the amy !!! piece, the dark black of the eyes, glasses, and hair contrasts uncomfortably with the rest of the piece. Either lighten the black color, or make the rest of it darker.
Sorry, I don't really know what else to put in here. Anime and chibi art isn't my thing. I'll be adding more references to the OP as time goes on, so hopefully you can learn a bit from there.
 
Thank you so much! The things you pointed out, I honestly hadn't noticed nor thought about.
I understand anime/chibi isn't everybody's thing but you still helped me out, thank you!
 
aa thanks my dude, i've been looking for someone to crit my work for a while now! here's a couple of my most recent pieces that i'd love if you could review:
wip.jpgorions redesign.jpgmmm oh my god.jpg
and a slightly older favorite of mine:
nice.jpg
note: i already recognize that i'm terrible at drawing hands and i'm trying my best to improve on that.
 
Thank you so much for the advice! It's really helpful ^^
 
Do you critique photographs

- - - Post Merge - - -

Oops never mind
 
kiwi-strawberry said:
aa thanks my dude, i've been looking for someone to crit my work for a while now! here's a couple of my most recent pieces that i'd love if you could review:
View attachment 217284View attachment 217285View attachment 217286
and a slightly older favorite of mine:
View attachment 217287
note: i already recognize that i'm terrible at drawing hands and i'm trying my best to improve on that.
Click to expand...

Hey Kiwi!
1. I really enjoy your usage of curves in your drawings. It shows that you aren't "afraid" of drawing curved lines and such, which I see a lot of artists of your level being afraid to do. Your linework, however, is pretty sloppy. I'm a traditional artist, so I can't give tips on making a smooth digital line, except that the undo button exists, lol.
2. Your silhouette in the drawing with the girl with wings is great! Everything is clear and well-defined, which is what you really want in a silhouhette. The feet curving in is pretty unrealistic, but it works well since it's a cartoon. Along with this, I think that that piece is also your best one that you've presented.
3. There isn't a lot of depth due to lack of shading in the three female pieces, and in your drawing of guzma, the lightsource is really vague. The best tip I can give you to improve shading is to take a still life class, where the organizer sets up objects under purposeful light sources, to make you aware of how the light affects the object. If you can't do that, then seek out online resources.
4. All three of the female faces are near identical. Try to change it up a bit when you draw them again next time, and don't be afraid to draw "ugly" features.
It's really late at night here and I'm losing my grip on reality, so that's where I'll stop for now.

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ZeldaJune said:
Hi! I'm still developing how I want my style so I'd like my most recent drawing critiqued: https://dthezntil550i.cloudfront.ne..._960/814bf966-32be-4108-8974-b1b7b7ba8113.png
Click to expand...

Sure thing!
1. Your lines are VERY smooth and well done! The one thing I'd tell you to improve upon in your line work is to change the "weight", or thickness of the line up. I'm not very good at this myself, it's pretty hard to tell when it's appropriate to make a line thicker or thinner. I'll try to add some resources about line to my op.
2. The color palette of the girl is just meh- the black shirt doesn't go very well with her extremely pale face+eyes+hair, and the background is garishly neon. You should try to expand your knowledge in color theory.
3. The pose and silhouette aren't very clear at all. If the figure was all a solid color, I wouldn't be able to tell what it was.
3.5 Her shoulders are way too small and the abdomen area just doesn't look right. For both 3 and 3.5, the best advice I can give is to practice gesture drawing everyday to improve your understanding of human anatomy.
4. Her facial features are really underdeveloped, and her expression is bland. People are ugly when they cry, don't be afraid to draw ugly.
Basic summary: everything in this piece is very minimal and plain, which can be good. Try to improve your knowledge of color and anatomy.
 
Robot_marmot said:
Can you critique the five or six most recent t submissions on this? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Hello! I'm currently at school today, and deviantart is blacklisted on the schools wifi network, but I'll try and do a crit later today when I get home :)
 
Robot_marmot said:
Can you critique the five or six most recent t submissions on this? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Alright here I go! Sorry for not gettin back to ya a couple of days ago.

1. I see ya did gesture drawings recently! This isn't really a critique of your technique, but you should change up what you draw the gestures with every once in a while to better understand them. Try doing one gesture drawing with a blue marker, try doing one in charcoal, try doing one with crayon, and so on!
2. My favorite thing on your profile is the I don't know piece where you experimented with drawing varied facial features. Excercises like those are key to improving yourself. Keep doing more like that! One thing I like to do to experiment with shape is take a bright, neon highlighter, and draw random blobs on a paper, then I draw lines in with a pen and turn it into something.
3. On the Some drawings post, you show a page in your sketchbook. One major "mistake" I see is that it's all in pencil, it's all drawn very small, and the drawings are spread out too far on the page. For sketchbook inspiration, you should look at calarts or other art school accepted sketchbook videos on youtube!
 
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