Ah Yea...

[dimezanime88]

If you are smart you might get the irony of this image. My latest:

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/126/izukai1tv.jpg

Please support the image also at DA just by viewing it.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/32233434/

[Zergaloth]

I must not be so smart, for all I see is a one-winged male who's wet his pants.

Too bad this is manga, it's very hard to crit since you can always say "manga's supposed to look that way", and I don't know all these manga-rules.

The muscle-lines on the left arm (for us) are wrong. Overall, I think they're too dark. Also, your coloring is very quickly done. You don't get realistic shadow by just putting a darker color over every muscle-line you have drawn, and at the bottom of every form. The image looks very flat, and the skin color is very wrong.

Manga heads have big eyes, small noses and weirdly drawn mouths, but I thought all these things were still on the same spot on the head as in real life? Your character's little nose is way too far down.

The belt and the bracelet look too flat. Try drawing them a little loose from the body, this way they look rounder and it will add volume to the body, since the viewer can see something like a belt goes round the body. Paying more attention to your coloring might also add to this feeling.

I don't understand the colors and the shadows on the trousers. I have, for instance, never seen a yellow shadow.

[Halos Chain]

neat idea, but even if your style is manga related or whatever it may be, any style can benefit from anatomical studies. Is he suppose to have one wing off to the side like that or did you not include the second? I cant quite tell.. it seems kinda rushed, if there were some darker tones it might add some depth, or some kind of a background would help so we could distinguish where the pants ended and the background started without just a line. is he nipple-less? :p' and..the belly button seems misplaced, like it should be higher and the torso should be a smidge not so lengthy. No offense to your drawing, he looks like a neat character but just needs a little developing, keep it up m8. : )

[BlueMech]

It's not irony, you need to relook up that word little boy. CA isn't really the best place to post this here as it doesn't allow any room for critique. Everything can be reputed with: "HAY THATS MY STYLE AND U CANT TELL ME WHATS RONG N RITE!!!"

Even for anime his eyes are too wide and all encompassing, his face is made of eye. The devil-angel thing is a little cliche and looks pretty silly in this instance. He also has pretty long rubber-fingers there. I'm also not sure why you opted for the "almost pen0r" shot with his pants, it doesn't fit well with the theme very well. If he's an angel, what's he doing trying to, I don't know, lure the ladies with his junk-lid. And if he's a devil, is he trying to scare them off with laughter? I just don't get it.

[light]

Nice tits.

[wassermelone]

http://webspace.ringling.edu/~awhitmor/images/vag.jpg

[dimezanime88]

Wow, this is sure a really nice community that I have brought myself into...

[wassermelone]

Well why bother with critique when we know you wont take it? I dont see any of what was posted in your previous thread applied to your new piece.

Now for some crits...

Study anatomy. The standing guy, his abs are too regulated and his 'rib muscles' are much too far down. his delt doesn't look right and his left forearm is too long.

Study faces. Draw faces from life. The face pic is very unconvincing due to the abnormally huge space between his nose and his eye. His face is tilted down, so his eye should be placed even lower than normal.

Finally, don't start with anime. Don't defend your posted work with the argument that it's 'your style' or it's supposed to be 'totally anime.' I've seen nicely drawn anime, and it follows the rules of nature. If you want to draw anime go ahead, but you have to know what proper anatomy is before you distort it. If you want to get better, drawing from life is the first step.

Hope to see some life drawings from you. Good start and happy drawing.

[BlueMech]

While this community does have too muc hass patting, we can also be harsh. If you don't want crits, delivered harshly or no you can do one of 2 things.

1) Stay at DA

2) Quit drawing

I'm going to assume you want to improve and keep being an artist, so you're best bet is to start from the basics. Even if all you want to do is draw anime, knowing anatomy will help improve it by leaps and bounds.

[JERI]

It might help in the future to include in your post some general background to the picture, what you're trying to do, what's it for, that kinda stuff. Since I don't know what you're trying to do, I'm just gonna offer some opinions on the anatomy of the character.

What stand out to me is that the nose is a bit too low, at that angle (I assume he's looking directly to the front), its bottom should align with the bottom of the ears. I also think he can benefit from wider shoulders, and his shoulder muscles (deltoids) are not big enough, its bottom should roughly align with the bottom of the chest muscles when arms are hanging straight down.

In general the proportions and the anatomy doesn't look very ordered (the pic stands out strongly as lacking symmetry) nor straight. I think you do have a general idea of the components of the body muscles, I reckon it would be helpful if you were to get a photo reference (which should be easy for this pose).

Is there anything that we should pay particular attention to?

[Genjuu]

Too bad this is manga, it's very hard to crit since you can always say "manga's supposed to look that way", and I don't know all these manga-rules.
Manga is still art, so art creativity guidelines still apply no matter what the genre of art the image consists of.


the skin color is very wrong.
It doesn't matter, maybe he wanted it that way.

As someone said, the character does look a little -- flat.

[stylus]

I agree w/ BlueMech. Anime has its own anatomy, which is based off real anatomy. So, in order to understand Anime-atomy, you need to understand how real anatomy works. So, like BlueMech said, the eyes are pretty excessive even in Anime terms. Plus, there's something really screwed up w/ his right hand. It looks like he has tendrils instead of fingers and not even 5 tendrils at that.

Oh, and the guy's an angel, but the words say "demon", right?

[dimezanime88]

Well, like it was previously said, I can't defend myself saying that this was 'my style' or my 'anime interpretation'. So I really don't have any options. I do appreciate the critiques, I just wished they were handed to me like that in the first place instead of the insults. But I have learned my lesson. As a whole together from what I just read and at the back of my head, I'm basically being told that my style should switch to something more complex (e.g. the front main page). I don't know if I can just throw away 8-9 years of that anime/manga style that I have become adjusted to. I idolize people like Kubo Tite (mangaka of Bleach) and Masashi Kishimoto (mangaka of Naruto), and their art is sometime awkward, but it seperates their works from others. If I was to follow strictly the rules of reality and nature, my work wouldn't be unique. But I'll try an experimentation on a much more detailed work to see where that gets me. Thanks for the critiques once again. I wish to explain the concept behind this art, but I have lost the inspiration to do so...

[Jason Rainville]

Well why bother with critique when we know you wont take it? I dont see any of what was posted in your previous thread applied to your new piece.

Hooray, I've been quoted :) I scanned his deviantart profile and it seems he did this one (like all his others) before coming to CA.

Posting old work - ok.

Posting old work which contains flaws, flaws which were pointed out in a previous piece and then getting upset because these flaws are mentioned - not ok.

[evildisco]

Well, like it was previously said, I can't defend myself saying that this was 'my style' or my 'anime interpretation'. So I really don't have any options. I do appreciate the critiques, I just wished they were handed to me like that in the first place instead of the insults. But I have learned my lesson. As a whole together from what I just read and at the back of my head, I'm basically being told that my style should switch to something more complex (e.g. the front main page). I don't know if I can just throw away 8-9 years of that anime/manga style that I have become adjusted to. I idolize people like Kubo Tite (mangaka of Bleach) and Masashi Kishimoto (mangaka of Naruto), and their art is sometime awkward, but it seperates their works from others. If I was to follow strictly the rules of reality and nature, my work wouldn't be unique. But I'll try an experimentation on a much more detailed work to see where that gets me. Thanks for the critiques once again.

Why wouldn't be unique if you try something other than japanese-influenced, I'd rather say it's exactly in your case that your voice is being drowned by the style of the people you idolize.
If you want to really create your own thing, set this influence aside and start from the basics, which are basically life drawing, figure drawing and master copying (by masters I mean old masters, say Michelangelo, Rubens and such). If you spend a good deal of time doing that you will develop a true voice of your own.

[stylus]

I don't know if I can just throw away 8-9 years of that anime/manga style that I have become adjusted to. I idolize people like Kubo Tite (mangaka of Bleach) and Masashi Kishimoto (mangaka of Naruto), and their art is sometime awkward, but it seperates their works from others. If I was to follow strictly the rules of reality and nature, my work wouldn't be unique.

Just to add on to what evildisco said, one of my profs said something that really rings true w/ me. To be good at what you do, you sometimes just have to leave your comfort zone. What's better? An artist who can just do anime work? Or an artist who can do both anime and realistic work? Also, I would think those manga artists still follow rules in Anime-atomy. And let's get one thing straight, Anime is just an artistic, exaggerated interpretation of reality. So, again, you have to understand how the real stuff works before you can pull off the same "awkwardness" that those artists do. Right now, your style looks like it can develop a lot more. So experimentation is good for you.

[Zergaloth]

"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort."
-John Ruskin
English critic, essayist, & reformer (1819 - 1900)

[Vague]

hey guys.. i just did a little exploring on dimezanime88's deviantart...
He posted something about doing a huge project to show us all that he has talent because he feals disrespected after our "rough comments and critiques." (poor guy thinks this forum is like deviantart.)

I dont know about you guys, but big projects always impress me more then artistic talent!

[Vague]

so i did a little exploring around on dimezanime88's deviantart and i found a post about conceptart.org

Apparently he feels disrepsected because our comments and critiques were to harsh (poor guy thinks this forum is like deviantart). According to the post, he's going to impress us all with a big project in a couple of weeks.

I dont know about u guys, but im always more impressed by big projects rather then ones that show any skill.


\w/ /m\

[JERI]

The plot thickens...

[sone_one]

hehe jeri.... ill add to it by...

tada....

@ vague ... dont behave that way ... making fun of someone, hardly results in good reputation.. think about it.


Well, like it was previously said, I can't defend myself saying that this was 'my style' or my 'anime interpretation'. So I really don't have any options.

haha oh no .... youre totally wrong there!... you got the option to listen what people try to tell you over and over, and taking a step out of your comfort zone.
if you feel its great and all youd like to do for a life time what youre doing now... heck... go for it man! noones got the right to tell you otherwise.

but if you like to become better at doing art....

drdarrow said something really brutal and beautiful in the painting from life thread in the fine arts subforum... (not an exact quote but soemthing along these lines)
"if you want to become better at doing art check your ego at the door".

amen

[dimezanime88]

Indeed I have a project planned. But I am not changing my style of how I look at anime and manga. Maybe the anatomy I agree to work on and maybe the facial structure, but that's it. My picture will be simple, to the eyes of you guys, but it will be something time consuming to me and hardwork. That's all for now.

[Jason Rainville]

I dont know about u guys, but im always more impressed by big projects rather then ones that show any skill.


I agree, large things are much better. :muscle: > :painting:

Anyways, dimezanime88, I don't think anyone is saying STOP doing anime alltogether. What I hear is a resounding "set aside anime for now and learn how it really works, what it's based on so that you can grow."

I also don't think people are outright ridiculing you and saying 'ha, stop posting you're teh nub' I hear people trying to help you become better and offering reasonable ways to do it.

I'm pretty sure everyone here loves art and wants to see more GOOD art. The way to see more of it is to help people by giving them honest and sometimes harsh crits about their work and offering ways to improve their skills.


As for your immese project: You don't have anything to prove to us other than the fact that you are willing to learn AND you are willing to work hard to improve your skills. Don't do this project out of spite, don't do it without taking some time and taking our advice.

[ArtistWannabe]

thats deep. and dimez, i guess this is a reality check. ppl giving honest critiques, is waht you and me need. take those rough comments, and squeeze out the little bit of constructive criticism they have. also appreciate ppl who critique kindly enough not to make fun of you, i noticed rhineville is one of them. now lets see what you can do!

[Snuggles]

Yo thar Dimez. Been doing the whole anime thing for around 10 years, and started to stretch my mind outside of it when I came to college. I think part of the backlash you got may've been because you indirectly called people who didn't get your image -stupid-. Could be just me, though.
Anyhway. As has been pretty much noted, even if all you want to do is anime art, you simply have to study life to be good. Even if you don't want to draw realistically, at least use real life models or photos to use as the basis for the anatomy of your anime drawings. Any manga book you read will tell you that most mangakas even hire models to come in, so they can use them for reference. O' course, on a further note. Studying other styles and ways of doing things can only help your anime art. (And all of your art as a whole, obviously.)

Without studying the beauty of real anatomy, it's hard to say if you can ever really appreciate why anime, or ANY style, makes the changes to reality that it does.

But, well. Critiqued as an anime drawing, considering all things true to the style, I gotta say... Well, the eyes are too big for this type of character. For one, any obviously masculine character will have eyes on the smaller end of the scale. It's one thing to have an average looking guy with big eyes, but when you have so many muscles and the whole nine, there's no way the design comes together with eyes that size. Note, for anime, the eyes are also disproportionate. It's a rule that the larger eyes get the more their anatomy and size comparison will change. Right now, you've got these large pupils set in a pair of sharp eyes...instead of adjusting the eyes to the size you made them, it looks like you just enlarged normal 'guy eyes', which is awkward. The eyelashes are odd...like little suns. Provided you didn't mean it that way, even characters with the spikiest hair usually don't have it come straight up off of their head-even Goku's got some flow to his freak-of-a-wig. Same goes for brows, and hair anywhere else, slight curls or at least spikes that follow the direction in which the hair naturally grows are necessary. He's lacking a real jaw-line...a lot of characters have simplified jawlines, but it seems this one was kind of arbitrarily placed, gathering from the shape of it and the placing of the mouth. The neck and shoulders are awkward, which I think stems from both the neck being too long and off center, and the shoulders being faaar too close together for somebody with so many muscles-it's a basic point of art history and human observance that a pair of broad shoulders is one of the mainstays of portraying masculinity. I think the torso and arms have been addressed (but you should note any anime where the muscles are drawn in that level of detail, fingers will never resemble curvy little hotdogs.) Also worth noting that his legs are far too small. The angles of his hips and all thosed damned muscles really say that he should have muscular, strong thighs and calves (go look at Street Fighter art, ja.) And while the wing doesn't LOOK horrible, I'd advise looking up actual bird wings for reference before doing your next set.

What's good here? Your rendering isn't the worst...it has a lot of fundamental flaws, but I get the feeling with some basic training and painting tips you could be doin' pretty good. (If you listen, that is.) Also, I just like your lines. Pretty clean, for pencils, and pretty confident. Use that confidence to improve, and you'll be golden.
Anime is art, by the way. This site is largely a community devoted to making good artists better. If you shut our advice, and the advice of other artists out, well...I think the results are self explanatory.

[Zergaloth]

I wish I got this kind of critique on my artworks...
Maybe I should try making a fuss about it too.. :D

[evildisco]

I wonder why waste so much energy on someone with deaf ears.

[dimezanime88]

I didn't say I wasn't listening; technically not reading. I have actually read evey post in this thread and I am taking them in (a positive way of course). I just got to figure out how to put all that into a drawing. Some assume that I guess my anatomy work and poses, and having no background story with art. But I do; as in art classes and lesson dealing with realism. I have studied the great classic artists, paintings, and styles of the past. I have had my share of that. Although this certain pic doesn't show that, being that I wasn't really using any source or memory of lessons, except pure fun and anime flashes, it doesn't mean I have low skills in art. I didn't just start drawing, but that's not the issue here. I am greatful for the critiques, and all though I did sound childish and ignorant at first, you can't really blame me since the first 4-5 posters didn't break down their reasons behind their critiques like the rest beneath did. I do study forms, design, structure, use model (personal taking pictures of cousins and friends) and etc., about life. Everyday I walk outside I study nature with my eyes and break it down mentally. It's just that because of my current style, I don't apply it. But being now that I read all the comments, and that I want to advance my skills in anime, basically art in a whole, I will attempt to try what you guys are saying. I could go to base 1, but I have already been through base 1, and it wasn't with anime.

[evildisco]

You seem to not understand something very important, "anime" and "realism" are not two separate entities. The pictures you've shown lack knowledge of fundamentals from anatomy to lighting, etc and it is not because it's anime, it's not like it doesn't follow the same rules as every other style of drawing.

Right now you are just making excuses to yourself and on top of that preparing yourself to not go anywhere, take it as you might I still think there's nothing in your current state that will "wow" anyone, regardless of effort(and don't take it the wrong way).
If you vehemently refuse to realize that things go hand in hand and that you are still young and inexperienced compared to other artists, the results will be abrasive, for you.
I do study forms, design, structure, use model (personal taking pictures of cousins and friends) and etc., about life. Everyday I walk outside I study nature with my eyes and break it down mentally. It's just that because of my current style, I don't apply it.
That kind of statement is what ticks me and many other people.

On the other hand want to "show us" what you really are made of?, create a sketchbook thread, keep posting daily with practices from LIFE and anatomy studies that are unaffected by "style".

[Fellah.]

"If I was to follow strictly the rules of reality and nature, my work wouldn't be unique" - that made me feel a little sad to be honest.
First learn the rules, then break them in a way that makes your art unique, but not wrong. Simple.
But keep it up!

[dischord]

"Akai Akuma"... "Red devil". For some odd reason those two of the very few words I remember from japanese class.

I agree with everything evildisco said above (and most of the things everyone else said).

I don't remember where I got it from, but someone made a graph of 3 levels of drawing skills. The lowest one doesn't think his drawings are good enough, so he gives up. Middle level learns how to draw something, and will then keep drawing the same thing over and over. Highest level (professional) will always study and work hard to improve his art.

Manga/Anime (normally) stays at the middle level while people aiming for realism will reach the highest.

[dischord]

by the way...Here is something to aim for.
Manga realism, even though it looks a bit screwy.

http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/list.pl?gallery=463bt

[D.Labruyere]

base 1 never ends, isn't that fun? :D

[Snuggles]

Lost track of time in my post-writing earlier and made it longer than it was supposed to be.

Fellah and evilDisco are completely right. For one, you can't 'know realism' and then not apply it. If you know the principles of life drawing and have practiced them thoroughly, they show. It's not a matter of choosing to apply them (for the most part.) When you know proper proportions with your hands, from practice, you shouldn't be able to draw a human form with proportions that far off without doing it very purposely. Simply put, not only would it probably not come out like that, but you would definitely notice them after the fact even if you made those mistakes.

And, well...it's common knowledge in many, many professions that in order to properly break rules you have to know them first, and break them purposefully. Nobody's telling you to be a slave to realism. (I'll be the last person to tell you that, matter of fact.) People are just trying to say that if you want to break these laws of the natural world, you better know what they are and how to break them first...else it shows through, not only in the form of a drawing with unbelievable proportions, but a plain old fashioned bad 'anime' drawing.

Gawdamn I'm wordy. Need to spread some more attention elsewhere.