First post

[resistie]

Hello, this is my first post here :)
This is a picture I finished a while ago, and all critiques/comments/etc are welcome (especially ones concerning the perspective and lighting).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/attaasa/CArennoah.jpg
Hopefully you'll be able to actually see the image...:[

[jfwalls]

Welcome! On to the crit! While the drawing is okay your figures do lack weight and volume. Everything is very flat feeling, and while it seems you're going for a cartoony/anime look, you can still get nice volumetric shapes with line weight.

The figures don't really feel like their sitting on the roof, but more like they are cut out and pasted. I really don't see much use of perspective, and the lighting is very timid. What I mean by that is that there is no strong light source, and you've kind of just done a few shadows here and there.

It's a little bit confusing because you seem to be going for a cel-shaded look, but the guy with white hair has more shading on him. So that brings me to a question for you. Which style are you going for, flat and cartoony, or more realistic shading?

[JasonUK]

The image does look very flat. It looks like the man in yellow is leaning his shoulder on thin air, and where does his legs go as there is a brick wall to the right of the picture? The zombie looking character also looks like he is floating on thin air. What is he sitting on?
I think there is a lack of shading where there is no light. Unless it is supposed to be this way.
The thing I like most is the character's hair. Looks really detailed and adds quality to the image.

[dogfood]

There's a story here, with James, the Business student whose parents don't understand his fascination with Molly Ringwald films and the Sex Pistols, and Gural-Narâl, the accident-prone Prince of a dark subterranean realm who loves Diet Sprite and doesn't understand why they haven't made the movie version of Gilligan's Island.

Unfortunately, there aren't many visual cues to tell us why these unlikely friends are on Hansel and Gretel's roof. I'm also thinking that Gural's neck is pretty much broken, as it is arched in the wrong direction.

Interesting piece.

[resistie]

First of all, thank you all for taking the time to critique this :)
The figures don't really feel like their sitting on the roof, but more like they are cut out and pasted.
I didn't realize this before so thank you for pointing it out. As for the question, I was trying to move away from cell shading and into more realistic shading and coloring. Clearly that didn't work out too well.
The image does look very flat. It looks like the man in yellow is leaning his shoulder on thin air, and where does his legs go as there is a brick wall to the right of the picture?
The brick wall is supposed to be a chimney (the gray stuff above it is meant to be smoke) so the man in yellow's legs are on the other side of the roof, behind the chimney. Looking at the picture again, I see how that is unclear. I'm glad you like the hair, though.
I'm also thinking that Gural's neck is pretty much broken, as it is arched in the wrong direction.
What do you mean? Other than being too long, the neck looks fine to me... (We're talking about the white-haired guy, right?)

[mull77]

Yeh, the blue guys neck look like it's snapped. Before it hits his choker, the neck is going up and then afterwards it seems to snap forwards. It's also a tad too long. And when i say a tad, i mean a lot.

The hair is nice on both of them and the faces are good, but the blue guy looks like he's about to slide off the roof. He doesn't have a purchase anywhere. Try sitting like that yourself (not on a roof though as there would be heath and safety issues), it ain't easy!

His fingers look broken also.

Don't be put off by harsh crit though, it'll make you stronger!

[light]

Those colors are really really saturated. That plus mostly shading with black and white really drags the image down, though it seems pretty good by itself.

[Lake]

mmm. never use a gradient by itself if you can help it... ever.