I need Help

[strawberryfox]

Hello, I have been drawing for almost 10 years now, but I'm still on beginner level when it comes to drawing, and I almost never get good critiques, so I wanted to ask her for some advice.
What do I need to improve on to not be considered a beginner anymore? And what can I do to make my drawings look more attractive towards people because nobody seems to care about it...
I would be really happy if I could get some good advice!
Here are some examples:

 

[SirRob]

You're a fine artist. If it's not getting attention, that just means that the right people haven't seen it yet. So I think the most important thing to do if you're looking for more exposure is to post your art in more places.

If there's one area where I think you could improve on based on the style you're going for, it's contrast/shadow/lighting. Improving that aspect would increase the sense of depth in your art as well as improve the interaction between characters and environment.

 

[strawberryfox]

The thing is I'm already posting it on Furaffinity and Instagram , not sure where else I could post it tbh .

Yeah I guess it makes sense , I do find it harder to understand lighting/shadow then stuff like anatomy. I will make sure to put some extra thought into it.
thanks for the feedback!

 

[SirRob]

Twitter is the big one. Bigger than FurAffinity for furry art these days, in my opinion. deviantArt is still being used as well. Another tip for exposure is doing fan art since people will be familiar with that and will seek it out via search functions, making them more likely to find your art. Not saying you should do fan art exclusively, mind you, just some here and there to get people to come to your gallery.

 

[strawberryfox]

Im not biggest Fan of twitter tbh, deviantArt I could consider using again.
I will have to think about the fan art one, i used to do that in the past and I was often kind of sad, that it got more attention then my other stuff , but maybe one or two won't be so bad , I will have to think about it..

 

[Lira Miraeta]

Draw from nature. It helped me to improve my level. Even if it will be teapots and rags, if you approach the task seriously, in a month you will be surprised. You can also make educational drawings, take someone else's art and copy it in order to understand how it is drawn and learn new things.

 

[strawberryfox]

by nature you mean real life instead of photographs ?

 

[LameFox]

What are you trying to draw like?

 

[strawberryfox]

I would like to have a Kemono kind of style

 

[LameFox]

OK. So I would say:

1. make a ref art folder and fill it up with art you'd like your drawings to be like. Doesn't have to be exact, if you like some element of it, and it's very high quality, put it in there. Not middle-tier stuff, just the best you can find.

2. figure out all the individual elements that you like about it—the things you most want to add to your own work. Make an actual list if it helps.

3. do studies of this art, and do studies of photos or real things but convert them to these styles. If you can find any, look up process videos and things like that by artists who do these styles (well).

4. when you create new things, compare them to your list from earlier, and compare them to pieces of art in your refs folder. See what's missing, what you could do better, what you could change to more closely match the style you want, etc.

If you keep doing that you should see improvement over much fewer than 10 years.

 

[strawberryfox]

well thanks for trying to help but the sad part is, I where already trying to do that..

 

[LameFox]

So which parts aren't meeting the standards you're aiming for?

 

[strawberryfox]

I don't know im terrible at observing my own drawings, i sadly see them higher then they are , wich is why i made this post , so maybe other people can tell me whats wrong and what I need to imrpove on. I guess SirRob isn't to wrong when I look at the Swing drawings i feel that light and shadows are the weakest point.
Or did unterstand the question wrong?

 

[LameFox]

I mean I can tell you when stuff doesn't make sense realistically. e.g. the rope on a swing isn't gonna be a curvy S shape, it'll be fairly straight from one point of contact (hands, swing, tree) to the next. For the style tho you'd need to show us what you are aiming for I think. Kemono doesn't mean much to me, and there's bound to be variety inside of it too, so specific examples are better.

Looking critically at art is a skill itself I guess. It typically develops on its own as you improve but maybe in your case you'll have to practice it specifically.

 

[strawberryfox]

So you mean the parts under the arms? thougt the rope being rather curvy was suppossed to be part of her character design, but I guess i can not show it of so good.
this could be an example

きつねメイドちゃん

希望：三食お揚げ付き

www.pixiv.net

well I guess so..

 

[LameFox]

Ok so just from looking at that now I can see some differences:

-the light and shadow layers are hard-edged and fairly strong, with the light being stronger than the shadow, whereas yours have softer edges and are not so extreme. However as there is no scene in this example it's hard to say if that's a stylistic choice, or indicates a strong light source.

-the 'hair' is apparently very shiny, and has more layers of colour to indicate shading than yours do. Notice in particular the darker band across the area where her hair is directly facing the viewer. I have no idea what that indicates in reality, if anything, but it's there.

-hair also has a more ribbon-like shape than yours. You can see this when it turns, there are essentially two wide flat sides and two very short sides. The fur however is more 3D.

-shapes of the clothing are more complex and display more 3D form than yours (particularly around the frills).

-the tail in the example is actually more like a single 3D form with fur indicated lightly by shading, while yours shows thicker clumps of fur similar to what is seen in the ears.

Cannot really compare the environments however as the example doesn't contain any, but you get the idea, I'm essentially just picking an element here and seeing what the difference is. Some of these you may want to change in your work (the clothing detail for instance), while others may just be personal preference (like clumpy tail fur). I'd suggest going thru more of these and seeing what differences you can pick out.

 

[strawberryfox]

For the hard edges i have to say I would prefer to have a more soft shaded style , i couldn't find a picture that has 100 % what i'm going for , i'ts just pretty close.

But I guess what i can take away from it is to work more on the shading and lighting and make it more "stronger" as well as trying to make the clothing more complex.

I think for Background Nightrizer would probally be my goal but I guess i'ts probally to ambitious, and im not sure if it would even fit the style for the characters im going for..

 

[LameFox]

In that case I would say that for backgrounds you should practice painting things a bit more loosely. Looking at that artist you'll see that while they do draw a lot of leaves, etc. that are up close, their distant plants and trees have a more painterly approach where you don't see these long vertical streaks of bark for instance. Your distant trees, hills, and lake are also simplified to an extent they're almost symbols of the thing they represent: green triangle trees, an elliptical lake, largely uniform triangular mountains. These forms don't look like they are part of nature anymore.

On the plus side, that artist has a youtube channel, so you can see how they work.

Also, there is no "too ambitious". You have to try hard things to get better, and often you will fail or not entirely succeed, but you pick up small improvements along the way that you might miss if you settled for lower goals. That's just how it goes.

 

[strawberryfox]

Ok i will try to keep it in mind. Yeah for second one that i feel you are mainly referring to, I guess I wanted to much stuff in their to have a beatiful background ..

yeah I already knew that, maybe i should rewatch some things..

Well i guess thats true, still it can be somewhat depressing to constantly fail..

 

[LameFox]

Depends how you look at it I guess. I try to focus on the longer term goal: I want to improve my abilities. Making mistakes is part of that—I can screw up a short term goal like a painting and still progress on what really matters. As I get better, I can always just paint new versions of those things anyway. Try to keep the longer goal in mind and don't hang too much hope on each individual piece of art.

 

[strawberryfox]

alrigty i will keep that in mind, thanks for the advice

 

[Lira Miraeta]

by nature you mean real life instead of photographs ?

Yes, still life, living people and animals, you can use statues and figurines.

 

[strawberryfox]

Yes, still life, living people and animals, you can use statues and figurines.

ok maybe i will give it a try

 

[cindybrown]

Hewoo, I think you just need to study anatomy from photographs or tutorials to reach your goal
You have a very cute artsyle and intermediate knowledge from what I see in your art. Really just give a try to random doodle different poses, so ya will build a great archive mindset when drawing
I think its the best way to improve, at least some minutes per day <3
Ah! Its also important to use refs when ya stuck with something ´w` they are very useful indeed!

Hope it helps you

 

[strawberryfox]

ok, for the doodles , sketches are enough or should it be an acutall lineart?
And good to know someone thinks it's intermediate, feels much better then complete beginner tbh.
yeah for the ref part, I always try to find some if Im stuck, but sometimes I don't find any good ones.