Claw vs. Lizard Man

[Artsta]

Done for a draw-off on a different forum. Enjoy.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i72/artsta007/claw.jpg

[Carnifex]

ok,first thing i noticed:her hands are on the wrong side (left is on the right and vice versa). most important thing-the composition is weak. there is no tension in this piece,if you cut up the lower half (the legs) you'd think everyone's just standing around. a tip here is not to have your point of focus right in the middle of the pic-in this case the woman,where the two adversaries are most likely to meet. perspective is pretty non-existant aswell,as seen on the wooden cubs.
and,you've probably heard it before-anatomy. you're getting there with your muscle structure (as on the lizard man),but double check your heads. the head shape of the guy is pretty wrong,he doesn't have cheekbones f.ex.,thus the face reads really flat (on the lizard man aswell btw). and your woman has quite a manly face (tip:introduce eyelashes). soften her face,make it rounder. check some refs if you're not sure. the lizard man doesn't seem to be looking at the man either (change the tilt of the pupil). the shoulders of lizard man are too narrow (rather non-existant) and the arms are abit too high up-don't forget that the chest muscle goes towards the armpit-doesn't work here. think about your linework,currently everything is the same strenght (thickness),which makes the pic unfocused and rather dull. f.ex. you could put finer lines into the faces (you did it partly) and stronger ones on the body. the outlines of the figures should be stronger than the lines on the bodies, and when there's a bone near the skin (elbow f.ex.) the line becomes stronger. so flesh=thinner lines,bones=thicker lines.
but as said,on this pic it will help most to introduce perspective,to tilt the angle of it slightly and not to have it seen directly from the side.
hope this wasn't too devastating,keep working it:)

[entdroid]

I agree with carnifex on his crits.
Besides, this image is way too busy, all the amount of detail in the bg makes it very confusing, which only adds up to the confusion of not having any hints of perspective: you have to define where is the horizon, where is the floor, how are this characters standing, etc.
And, this may be a personal preference, but I find the guy's body hair really disturbing.
I hope I helped a little :)
Keep up the hard work!
entdroid

[Utum]

In the first place I'd like to say I appreciate the ammount of work you've put in the background. I've never been able to work so much what's behind the picture, and I guess It must have taken a lot of work.
I still agree with the previous crits about anatomy which, in my opinion you can only get by drawing A LOT. Again I agree with the lack of perspective, which can be approached sistematically.

One thing that could help you add depth to your sketch is a little bit of shadows. Considering that, most possibly, your strongest lightsource is the fire you could use this information to shade the the background a bit, and also to add some volume to the guys muscles. By considering the light, you can reduce the amount of detail you need to draw into the background, since it will possibly be shaded anyways.

Keep it up.

[John Doe]

Other than the crits above, I'd say the the shape of the man's head is distorted. Study faces more and how the skull/face muscles affect the appearance of the head. It's also a little odd that the back legs of the lizard and the man don't have as much anatomical detail as the rest of the body. I like the amount of detail you'd put in the picture though and the general anatomy is pretty good. Keep working.

[TheGnoll]

mmm i agree with the crits above.This whole thing needs a stronger composition, more contrast, a less noisy and messy detail, certainly less hair and some anatomy check ups on all the figures.Use ref, it can only help.

ciao

[Elwell]

Learn to love thumbnails.