First post (part one, nudity?)

[eli]

Hey all, I love this forum... been around chatting in a few threads but thought I'd show a bit of my recent work. part one

http://www.sepatown.com/art/post/fortysixand2.jpg


http://www.sepatown.com/art/post/oldman.jpg


http://www.sepatown.com/art/post/think.jpg


http://www.sepatown.com/art/post/alice.jpg

[blankslatejoe]

Ack! dont post so much at once! you really kill poor dialup users like me. :(

Otherwise, your stuff looks very sleek and polished. It's very illustrative, and reminds me of a lot of stuff you might see in magazine spreads.

Your colors are really bold and vibrant, makes it look like pastels.

It's hard to crit stuff that's purposely illustrative like this, but I'll do my best. Your full body figures look a little weird. The distortion of anatomy is nice, but I don't think it's quite effective in the taller pieces, particularly the nude girl and devil. If you're gonna distort, go all the way, like the old man pic.
It might be the gesture, all these people seem to be standing very rigid and posed (except the golf guy, i dig his pose). Youd be suprised how ineffective the comic book poses actually are, take your sketchbook and draw 10 second sketches of a couple-a dozen people around a mall or park. Watch how they stand, sit, slouch.

Also you might want to add a little depth to your images. All of them seem fairly surface/foreground orientated, which isn't neccesarily bad, but doesn't really show of as much as you could be doing, particularly in the alice piece.

I checked out your site, and you've got some good work there, and I have no doubt that with more dedication and some practise you'll improve a thousand fold. Good work and good going!!

[RipperMcGuirl]

I agree with everything joe said, and I really do dig this stuff. I also like the oblique reference to Tool =]

[eli]

Joe: wow, thanks for the awesome crits! I will use all of this to my advantage. I have been striving for improvement and these were all based off of sketches that I did a long time ago and where composition was not a thing in my vocab. I am happy that I even did anything nice with them at all! I have a bunch of new stuff in the works that hopefully will display a solid use of all the things you pointed out. so again, thank you very much.

Ripper: Thanks bud... I am happy that you got the tool ref. Its a little bold but hey.... works for me.

[eli]

I know that these c.g.'s are lacking in composition, but are there any brave souls who might help me out with a few more crits on technical aspects? I basically sketched some random stuff to paint on in the interest of practice. I think I am ready to move on to painting out some of my ideas with better composition and "feeling"

sorry to be long winded but I am really interested in hearing anything that could help me to improve, suggestions to try etc.

[tyboogie]

i think youre doing a good job. I would suggest using reference more, but otherwise i think youre just learning and growing. My advice--just keep painting--keep up the good work--ty

[wronghand]

My favorite is the last one, I think it is because of the realistic rendering in the face,
the fantasy aspect has more impact because the character feels real, someone I
can identify with.

On the third one, the crop on the hair feels uncomfortable, maybe more mass on
the top.

On the fourth I wonder if the hands should be more detailed, being that they are
the closest to the viewer and hands having the potential of being so expressive in
general.

Mike Kerr