Monster-alien( HELP WANTED)

[blanquish]

Ok, this is a design Ive been working on, its still kinda wip, but i need your help
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7811/monstercopy5ys.jpg
thats it, any links, advice, tips, critque, ANYTHING
nitpick it to death, its due this friday

thnaks for yur help
btw im only 14

[blanquish]

seriously come on, i thought you all were a bunch of pros, its a highly skilled frum, shame no ne notices anything

[gl0gg]

I think it would help if you drew your monster how it would look if it were made from primitives, for example boxes, spheres and cylinders, and then try to imagine how it would look when lit so you get your shadows and stuff right. The texture of the skin which I can imagine that you have been working some time on you can always fix the last thing you do. I believe it's more important getting the big shapes and lighting right. I hope I helped some :)

[dogfood]

OK, I know that using the computer is incredibly enticing, but I think you'd get far more out of your time if you were to spend more of it working with pencil and paper. Check out Loomis for some fantastic advice on learning to draw, and check out Prom's tutorial (http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm) on how to handle a number of things.

And gl0gg's right: get to know how light affects basic shapes, then use modified versions of those shapes to build your figures. Right now, your image is very flat, despite some shading (and what appears to be dodge and burn, the bane of computer generated art).

[Tully]

Dude, you didn't even wait an hour. Just give people time.. we're not always all over every single thread as soon as it's posted.

gl0gg and dogfood are both right. It's good that you're painting over a midtone here (don't do it on white until you get really good... white backgrounds can really easily kill almost everything except line drawings). You're obviously inexperienced, and that's certainly ok, but in addition to staying away from the computer until you really learn to draw, I'd suggest staying away from full colour as well. Value (darkness/lightness) is something that's good to pin down first, because without knowledge of how to use it, colour is mysterious and extremely difficult to manage.

[Texahol]

I'm really confused. What the hell is it?......and what was the assignment?

[Justice Von Brandt]

I'm really confused. What the hell is it?......and what was the assignment?

amen!
please do tell us

[grantrl78]

Keep at it. :)
Try doing a bunch of drawings of this guy
before jumping to the rendering stage.
Painting is fun but getting
the drawing right is most important.

[blanquish]

Dude, you didn't even wait an hour. Just give people time.. we're not always all over every single thread as soon as it's posted.
I was kinda angry becasue it didnt get one post and two dozen new threads came in and they all got help
hey dude, it was a day and half an hour( not 26 or so minutes that it would seem like at first, pays to look a tad harder at the dates)
Ok firstly since you asked it was for an english assignment, a radio play, now your probably wondering wtf man( engrish..huh) part of it was to create a cover illustration and i did it.
What it is, well you can figure that out, alien or something, does it have to be ANYTHING?
It was all very experimental. And why do i have to stay away from a computer before i get "really good", surely it's better to learn it early, i'm always drawing, my sketchbook is proof of that.
thanks you grantrl78's for the advice, i probably should of done that, now ive realised that the right arm( his left really) should be moved to the left a bit, but that was after staring at it a lot.

[dogfood]

...does it have to be ANYTHING?
Yes.

It has to be able to project what you want to convey if you want it to be effective. So you have to ask yourself, "What feeling or idea am I trying to evoke?"

Once you get that down, you can take what you know and apply some of the general artistic guidelines to bring about that effect. If you feel yourself lacking in some of that knowledge, try looking at images that give the feelings you want to emulate. Deconstruct them and figure out how they do it.

Right now, I get no feeling from this image. The colors don't necessarily carry any message, being so evenly cool and warm (it's usually more dramatic to push one with just enough of the other to balance it), and the figure's construction and pose don't give us much, either (nor the camera angle).

I'm not implying that you should go copy some image (though doing so can be a useful exercise), but this is where art study is going to help out. Find out how other artists tackled the challenges you're facing.