The little goth girl

[Senira]

Hello all! I'm new here. *waves*

I've been lurking here for a bit and after seeing the fantastic advice people give out, I've decided to submit my work for some critiquing.

I realize that my folds need some work, but I think I need a better understanding of figure volume as well. And my folds never seem to have enough contrast to me; even when I want a picture to be dark (like this one) I get kind of paranoid about it coming out too dark and I go for lighter colors instead. Does anyone have any advice for getting a better sense of lighting? I'd really, really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

http://www.angelfire.com/anime3/sailorstar3/lydialean2.txt

[Sinix]

Neat, uh yea, the coloring seems alright... I'm thinking if you wanna get more acustomed to making things darker, possibly try doing some pieces in just black and white (not greyscale)? I dunno, I'm hardly an artist, the legs on this piece seem slightly awkward once they leave the dress and the shoulder line area seems a bit flat or off. Good drawing tho.

[gekitsu]

hi, welcome to the forums!

the question of contrast is always a bit tricky. it totally depends of what you are going for. a glossy finish would feature some touches of the surrounding colors, as well as sharply defined speculars and overall a lot of hard edges in shading.
a more matte cloth on the other hand really does not feature lots of highlightings and stuff that would pump up contrast.

concerning your pic, i think it is not bad. maybe her dress could be a bit darker to contrast her pale skintone.
one way you could try is adding background color. against white, almost everything looks "too dark".
try darkening the background, so that cou can make the dress with darker values and the pale face will stick out even more.
you can give a lot of overall athmosphere with just background color. warm surroundings, cool surroundings... bright or dark. you tell all that without painting anything.
now that is bang for the buck, eh? ;)

your hues could have a little bit more depth. right now, it just looks as if you made a base color and whitened it for lights and blackened it for shadows.
try to give all lights a bit of a twist towards yellow, you'll end up with a warm light. the shadows might have a bit of purple or cool hues.
you could as well choose to twist every light a little bit towards cyan or any other cool hue and make your shadows warmer.
experiment around: try one light color for all lights (maybe pale yellow for warm lights)
try saturating light and shadow very highly and leave the mass tone more gray. or vice versa...
here, you would probably also have light bouncing off the red pillow, so all the shadows on her skirt might look a bit reddish in places.

you should also study different sorts of cloth in terms of light and shadow. some, as velvet, have a very distinct look.

you can add tremendous depth with just a bit of work.

i just don't find she looks too gothy. it looks more like that gothic lolita style that is quite popular in japan or like a french maid uniform.
i mean: where's all the dark glamour, all the accessoires? rings on fingers, piercings, pendants...
and all the makeup?
on our goth parties, the girls always go for an very dark, elegant & ladylike, sexy look. some have more historical clothes, that are inspired by victorian designs, some like glossy leather... but always ladylike.
black is the color of power and of death, black is our (the goths) color.
concerning clothes, most goths are a bit elitist ;)

[Senira]

Actually, I was going for the lolita style in this one- I came across it the other day and found it too adorable to ignore. Thanks for the advice on changing the shading/highlight hues, Gekitsu; I've been trying to do a few pieces with odd colored light sources, so now I'll do them more often. And I see what you mean about the legs, Sinix; her right one seems a bit too slanted now that I look at it. Hm...

[gekitsu]

for that gothic lolita stuff, there are scans of a japanese magazine available in the web. it#s called "gothic lolita bible". kind of vogue for that particular style.
they make super reference :)

[sepulveda]

hey, gekitsu, thanks for that info for the lolita gothic.....it's great ref material!

[Carnifex]

hmmm...lolita:yummy:
love the redhead:D