Suichiro

I actually hate doing critiques, because I dislike pointing out flaws in people's art, but this is a WIP thread, not a finished piece thread. I think that anything I can do to help you make a better artwork is absolutely my duty to you as a friend.

Notice why I don't post WIPs. :3 *runs away from criticism on his crappy art*

You know DB, I think someone is corrupting you... that's some hefty stuff there in the background. o.O

*ahem*

One of the things you could easily modify to make it a better piece overall, is make the barbs on the wire realistic to the way they'd really turn. If the barb comes out in back, they'd both exit in back. If it comes out in front, they should both be in front. It'd be impossible for a barb to start in front, wind around, then come out the back. At least, impossible to point in opposite directions like that.

The eyes are looking very nice and crazed. The small iris with no pupil always looks great for the "intense, insane eye."

Another thing, is that she'd probably be holding the lollipop like a spoon, rather than like a broom. If you go and hold something in your hand like you were going to eat it, you tend to use your thumb and index finger to pinch it for more control. I know it's a difficult thing to draw, but the little details will make the bigger picture.

Besides, you're such a good artist that I'm gonna try to make sure you use the most of your abilities. *cracks the whip* Mwahahahaa!

I told Starry that I loved the art on DA, but I'll say it again here. Star, you rock my boxxorz! Getting random art out of the blue is probably the coolest thing in the world for me. It always means a little more when you didn't directly ask for it, or put your name in a hat full of other people for it. It was simply given as a selfless act. For that I love you Star.

Besides, she makes for a hilariously cute little puffie. Thanks again Starchasm.

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WHO DID THAT?!

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I did. Sometimes I'm an artist, but most days I'm a snotty, obscene, know it all. :3

Melanie actually has a lot of complex emotions. She's not a villain in the sense that she's directly evil. She's been tortured and abused for years as a way to forge her into a killing machine against her will. When she finally got free from the monster that was controlling her (my stalker char) she found herself in the hands of Arachnos as one of the "destined ones."

She was given to Scirroco, since his expertise in the magics of the Mu would allow him to handle her chaotic spell ability better than the other generals. I can't post the rest of her story since it involves spoilers of the Scirocco storyarc, but I can tell you that she met Fathim the Kind and he gave her a gift. He could not heal her past, but he could heal her mind enough to re-unite the splintered shards of her psyche. With both the good and bad sides of herself merged, she could think more clearly. However it gave her the capacity for love, something which she had never known. By the time she knew what the feeling was, it was too late and she had dashed away any hope of being close to the one she loved by her own cruel hands.

Of all the tortures she had faced in the past and of all the foes she had fought in battle, the strongest of all was killing her deep inside.

I feel terrible for doing this to her, but her story calls out to be told and my art blood can't deny it.

Of all the things Melanie's broken over the course of her sad tale, the worst of all was her heart.

Loveless.
<//3

I like the bow a lot, but I think removing it will make the overall pic less busy and probably add to the composition in general. I love the cat symbol made with the yarn above the arch. The new border idea is really interesting and you're doing great things with it. Makes me wish I had thought of it myself...

*plots to go back into time and take credit for the border idea*

psst.. no it's not. It's Bagonderry.

*runs*

Well technically, my name is pronounced exactly like that. Sue-ee-chee-ro. But in reality, it's much easier to just explain to people that it's pronounced Switch-iro. Especially since that's where the handle came from, I'm on and off like a light swtich.

I might be interested in an Art Trade indeed. I want art too, and I'm poor enough to never be able to afford it, except through friends and secret dirt-cheap-rate artists. Lemme see what I have on my plate first though. I've been in a drawing mood as of late, but of course that's when all the sharks come out of the water to say "OMG PLZ ART M3!" Needless to say, I have a lot of people pestering me, but rare few that want to give anything back for it.

You get a cookie for not being a leech.

You heard it here folks. Dragonberry is now officially level 51. She dinged right here in this thread where everyone could see. Shame on you DB, you haXX0r! Nerf Dragonberry!

I con grey to her now. No XP.

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so what do I win

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You win a brand new,

shiny,

custom made,

hand crafted,

REPLY!

WOOHOO! *sparklers go off and cheap confetti rains around DB. Not the expensive stuff mind you, we're on a budget here and can't afford your big city fancy pants confetti.*

Now the key here is, if anyone can tell what the heck the other two pets are. o.O

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I've been calling you 'Soo-keer-oh' in my head too

Don't worry, I do the same thing to Chiroptera (which I pronounce Chur-oh-terra or Chirpy-terra Instead of Cheer-op-tehr-uh)

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*cries* nobody says my name right! You're all supposed to understand and speak perfectly fluent Japanese from birth!

Trust me, I know the feeling already. I pronounce Chiroptera correctly *only* because I have a troller named Jet Coleoptera. You'd not believe how many times people call her Cleopatra.

nekid boycats are automagically winvincible. It's like the Easter Bunny and Chuck Norris collided and the resulting explosion fused into happysauce.

...because where there's nekid boycats there's nekid girlcats. I know I can find some if I just look hard enough...

(stumbles onto Rowr's gallery and passes out)

LOL, Promise?

DB, you keep calling me Suchiro. I keep pronoucing it in my head as Sucky-ro. It's 'Suichiro', like Switch-iro. I'm gonna start calling you BagonDerry if you don't stop, you big pink poofyhead.

+1 vote for ribbons and bows! WOOHOO!!

I haven't done much work of my own character, but doing art recently has inspired me to do more of my own characters. So I did another of Melanie, this time with pets.

This one took a while to figure out how to setup properly. Fitting in 3 pets along with Melanie proved to be difficult at best, considering the size discrepancies of them all. The picture only took a few hours, but the setup took all weekend. :\ Sadly I had to crop things out a lot to achieve a proper framing.

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the /\ in h3/\lz should be a 4.

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No way. Advanced l33t 4 +3h \v/!n.

I use a green Col-erase colored pencil, mechanical pencil, pen style click eraser and printer paper.

The secret to getting clean lines to me, is in using colored Col-erase pencils to do your draft work and then drawing the final down in pencil. It's very easy to erase the colored lines in Photoshop via a slight channels editing. Your physical art page will not be as messy as doing it in straight pencils and sometimes the added color makes a line drawing more pretty to view than simple B/W.

Also, knowing how to properly clean and enhance art in Photoshop does miracles. I suppose that's my last tool in drawing. You can't create wonders from nothing in Photoshop, but it certainly helps to chisel away the excess line from your creative process and hone it into something great.

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I really wish I had had a pair of boot to look over tho as I felt it was cheating a bit by just making them up

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I dunno. I do that all the time. :3

If you really want examples, the internet is a seriously cool place to find art models of dang near anything you want. Even if you can't find full posable 3D models or renders, you can still get ideas and specifics from things to use as reference. Even just a stray idea can turn something ordinary into something unique and notable.

Sweet boots. (New Rock store)

Sweet clothing. (Lip Service)

That's freaking great DB! I really like the calendar theme, especially since I was hoping that she'd wind up August in the 'Ladies of the Dark Isles' calendar. You know, "Hot August Nights" and all.

The barbed wire ring is a very cool border choice. I rarely do any real border work myself, as a part of the piece. I'm getting kinda jealous that you thought of it and not me. Also, the details like how her boots are unlaced and how they have *exactly* 10 lace holes each, are spectacular. From all the work you've done (that I've seen) you do detailwork really quite well. The fact that people know you a lot for your more simplified drawings is both good and bad. It's good, because it's much harder to make a simple drawing look good than an over detailed one. It's easy to hide mistakes in details, whereas a simple drawing has nothing to hide behind. It's bad in that, people don't know how much of a technical artist you can be and the potential you have hidden away in secret. You can't hide it anymore, DB. I'm on to you. :3

You even got the sharp shape of her ponytail right and her trademark cowlick. For that I'm eternally grateful. And I dunno why you're worried about making her too cheesecakey. You obviously haven't heard about Melanie's mouth when she's in PvP. She's probably one of the more lecherous and flirtatious villains in the zone. She makes Cackle blush.

(Well, not really, but she likes to think so. She does go 'pantsless' for him a lot though.)

Her outfits also run the gamut. She's a clothes horse and has outfits for all sorts of moods and situations. Anything you could make up aside from a goody goody foo foo dress would be appropriate. And even that might be hilarious fun to see.

If there's anything I'd ask you to change, it'd be if you could possibly make her eyes looking at you/the camera. I love the way her eyes turned out, cause she really has that intense kinda glare. I think it'd be magnified if her focus was on the viewer. Makes for a more aggressive mood.

Something I would not change, the setup of the spikes on the barbed wire. If the wires go opposite directions from each loop end, then where is that one she's sitting on headed?

One more for Southstar.

Yeah, but that's been over the span of decades that the collection has been building up. I'm really not very productive in general. I just get on art kicks sometimes and start producing in spurts.

And while there's nobody I'd call out by name, there are plenty of leeches out there. It's human nature to want something, especially if it's unique. I've been moderating art groups for years and years and I see it happen all the time. If you say you'll do art, you get swamped with people trying to get some off of you. I generally dislike that and I tend to avoid posting partly because of that.

I want art of Melanie too. If someone says "I'll do anyone's character for free!" My first instinct is to run to the front of the line and say "Do mine please!" It's easy to get caught up in it. As an artist, it's hard to keep producing on a consistant level of quality. My arms get tired, my brain stops working, I get eye strain and I simply lose interest. We're real people and sometimes it's easy to forget that we're not just art machines to be used by everyone. I try never to treat other people like that, so I generally don't bite at those type of threads.

I know I'm ranting, but it's an issue that's close to my heart. That what happens with 6+ years of art group moderation experience.

Commissions and art trades are another story, since you're getting something in return. Though I generally dislike taking money for my art. I don't really think it's worth much, because I don't personally set a price on it. It's what I do for fun and fun is free. As soon as it becomes a job it's no longer fun. I'm also generally very poor and I don't have the big bucks to spend on commissions, so I don't want to set high prices that will leave my stuff out of reach for those of us of empty pocket.

I take payment in bubble wrap, cheesecake and shots of Inertial lying dead on the pavement in Siren's Call.

Seriously though, I only do art for people I consider friends or the random pic when I'm feeling bored or just wanna draw. As soon as I say "open for requests" I'll be filled with hundreds of people wanting to leech art off me. I'm too lazy to ever succumb to that.

On the other hand, there are times where I might do something for an art trade. Lord knows that I don't have much art of Melanie from other peole. I always enjoy that. But again, that's on an infrequent basis. Simply put, I like to do nothing, and lots of it!

I recommend "The Marvel Way to Draw Comics."

It's a very old and still very good book to learn the first steps of drawing. It focuses on a lot of the basics that people lack, or simply want to skip before moving onto the more elaborate drawings. While there are a lot of better books for learning how to draw more accurately or more realistically, I've yet to find a book that had as much A to Z as that one. Especially for those people just starting off.