desperatly need help

[Tiger Mimi]

Hi, this is my second post here and this place is the only place where I can get serious help.
This is a character design for a kid book.
This is far from the result I want but I'm a beginer at illustration so I need lots of practice. My real job is portrait artist and i'm use to have a model as a reference.
I need all the help you can give me.
Thank you soo much everybody. (blowkiss)

[Nistarn]

your still doing it traditionally, portrait i meaning, the pose, the compostision... this shows me an elf but and nothing else, try to point out other aspects, maybe seeing her detail face is not so relevant for the picture, or the message you re trying to convey in each sketch. More dynamic features, lines, espression, it has no personality, movement or story behind it.

colour is good, i like it and maybe some lines are to equal, strong

hope to see more

[ninja soop]

Expiriment with your line weight a little more. This will give more character to your pic. and also show more definition in the face since that's the main point of the pic. More bone structure, ya know? Also if you want to do illustrations then I wouldtry to get away from portrait type drawings even though you said that is what you do. Illustration is totally different. look around this site at some of the awsome illustrators and get some ideas from them. Not jack thier ideas, just get some inspiration from them. Hope this helps!

[Tiger Mimi]

Yeah, I know it could be a thousand times better, but for now this is all I can do. If you had read the book that i'm illustrating, you would see that the book is not verry high quality, so it's perfect for a beginer like me. I'm not use to draw without any references, that's why it looks like this. I need to practice, practice, practice and practice.
Thanks for your precious help.

[Tiger Mimi]

I'm not convinced that portrait and illustration are totally different. If you don't learn to do portraits, you cannot illustrate.
I just need to find a better way to start my drawing.

Thanks for your comments.

[Janto]

Why not use a model, if it's something you're comfortable with? I'd say check out Alex Ross's work (Marvels/Kingdom Come) for a very good idea on how to use meticulously posed portraits in a comic strip format. Not sure where you can find details of his work method apart from the back of Marvels, but someone else here might know, or know someone with a similar style.

You say it's not turned out the way you want - can you describe your vision, what you want from the piece?

[Nistarn]

the thing is, you have always to step foward, and you already made a big step, for a start is pretty good i can t color like that yet,

about reference, you should work with reference even if you trying to create something that doesnt exist, your mental library already knows what a dress looks like, good, now you have look for other materials, styles of hair, face, structure, it seams a looot... but look this way, there is a lot to experiment, so look for references in life to draw your fantasy, it doenst matter if it is a poor book or not, its your art, you should be proud of it.

grab your scketchbook put here some of your doddles, release the perfectness desire first, hope to see it pretty soon

[Tiger Mimi]

A better lines quality. Something that looks more ''spontaneous''. Like Craig Mulan. More movement... ect

[Nquyet]

I'll have to agree with Janto:
why not use a model reference for your work, if it help you get better results?
You can study face anatomy when painting from life too.

[Janto]

There's probably better people to talk about line quality and control than me - to get movement and looseness into my line work, I find it much better to work with real media, butting down lines quite fast and in a light, sketchy way that can build up to a more defined line. It's great for old, weathered faces, but less good for fresh, young ones.

For movement, another thing I'd say is think like an animator - it's an illustration, so it's for an ongoing story, so it should have a reference to what's happened to the character and set up something else that's about to happen to her. That can be as subtle as tweaking the expression so it looks like the start of a smile, or firm face with tear streaks, or so on, or include more obvious symbols like the character being lit as though they're standing in the transition from light to darkness.

[cmoreland]

For a kids book this looks just fine in my opinion! Only thing I would add would be I don't think you need to outline the entirety of the lips...if you look at a model, you'll notice that there is quite a bit of line variety and depth to a set of smoochers than you may think.