Colored WIP Melanie Moody.. ENCOURAGING CRITIQUE

NSFW ... so get back to work and no peeking till you get home!!


..well its my first time for actually getting into coloring something.. sense all my other WIP is ink... thought I would throw this out for an critique..

...I plan on reposting it over and over and over and over on this thread till I get it just right..

Melanie-Moody-colored-WIP

What are you using to color it?

And FYI, this may be skirting the line of NSFW.

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What are you using to color it?

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photoshop.. ( and 3d studio max a little )..


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And FYI, this may be skirting the line of NSFW.

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..I will put that im my upper post...

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And FYI, this may be skirting the line of NSFW.

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..I will put that im my upper post...

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Thanks tartyrsauce! a little late Ive already been fired and ridiculed by all the female employees in my office and branded a sexist PIG! ill hunt you down and destroy yo.... meh this is too much effort to keep up. just looked at the picture and im definitely not at work so just forget that last part it was me being silly.

ANYWAY moving on.

Definitely like where your heading with your art you've shown a shipload of Improvement since you first started chucking your art on here.

My biggest advice would be to try and work a little larger. big canvas/paper (Id recommend 11" x 17" Comic art boards) so you don't run out of room at all and you can get lost in detail a little more. also with most anime they have fairly thin lines or colored lines on the outside. (which is a trick you shouldn't concern yourself with just yet. although not an exceedingly difficult thing to do, we can just take it one step at a time)
but the larger you work the easier it is to keep the lines thin, at least proportionately. the colors are going in the right direction, depending on the anime/manga style your going for I'd consider using a harder brush tool for the shading and going a little bit darker so the end result is a bit bolder. also maybe give some poses that are a little less clustered and more elongated a try I think it would be beneficial. hope Ive given you some good feedback and not just made a silly joke and then rambled on, i do that a lot. but yeah man your art is getting pretty damned tight keep it up.

I would add some more color to her skin, you can barely make out the shading on it. Also the white highlights on the legs and hair are a bit strong. You might want to use your base color in 3 tones first, and then add the white in sparing proportions. Look at a piece of leather. Only the most shiny parts would translate as white, the rest would be black, grey, and several lighter greys...

The same can be said of your hair. Anime highlights are sharp and striking, but there will always be at least two colors to it, maybe 3. Are you going for a cell shaded look or a cross over between comic coloring and anime?

Edit: in my humble opinion, I don't believe the 3DMax Studio is helping you. The piece in general looks overly filtered. I know this, because I have done this, before, many times before I knew how to color properly or with any semblance to the styles you're looking for... it looks cheated, especially when your drawing has so much personality, the coloring takes away from it, in that it looks like 2 different people did the piece. One who can draw anime, and the other learning to color it.

I would try your hand at the traditional cell shades, then add some comic highlights for effect. I could be stepping out of line here, but were you going for a specific look of anime, as in some movie or manga you know of? If I saw an example of what you wanted to achieve, I could probably breakdown some tips for you in coloring in a similar vein.

Okay, this is somewhat difficult for me to get around the two click rule, but this is my attempt.

Look in here for the following pictures:
/Melanie_Moody_Inks.jpg
/Melanie_Moody_Flats.jpg
/Melanie_Moody_Cel.jpg

This is an example of the 'less is more' aspect of anime style art. In the 'Inks' pic, I've taken your piece and slimmed down the number of lines to create more of a minimalist piece. That's generally the smooth and clean look of most anime styled pieces. It's also similar to the art deco style of the new breed of Bruce Timm style pinup art and fusion style superhero cartoons.

In the 'Flats' pic, I've just added basic color flats into the picture to give it some hue. It already starts to look like an animation cel, with it's very basic bold shapes.

Finally, in the 'Cel' pic, I added one and only one level of basic shading. It is not a soft shade, but instead a hard cel shade, where the light separation is very obvious. Now it really looks like an anime or animation style piece, with it's bold shapes and simple shading. To finish the job, I just added some highlight into the hair crown.

You already have the basic proportion down, you have some of the styling down, now you just need to work on the 'less is more' mantra. Once you have the style down, then you can start getting more fancy and doing more complicated techniques, like multilevel shading, soft gradation and coloring the line art itself. But for now simple is the way to go. Once you can make it look easy (which we all know it never is,) then you'll know you've succeeded.

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I would add some more color to her skin, you can barely make out the shading on it. Also the white highlights on the legs and hair are a bit strong. You might want to use your base color in 3 tones first, and then add the white in sparing proportions.

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all the shadings in 3dmax.. im working wiff the lighting now ..

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Are you going for a cell shaded look or a cross over between comic coloring and anime?

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as realistic as you can get without it looking bizarre

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Edit: in my humble opinion, I don't believe the 3DMax Studio is helping you. The piece in general looks overly filtered. I know this, because I have done this, before, many times before I knew how to color properly or with any semblance to the styles you're looking for... it looks cheated, especially when your drawing has so much personality, the coloring takes away from it, in that it looks like 2 different people did the piece. One who can draw anime, and the other learning to color it.

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*grabs poor 3d max and runs away with it*.. I have to at least TRY.. my life would be so complete if I can take my love of 3d art and merge it with my love of 2d art, flawlessly.. I want not only my anime style but my other styles to look so realistic that you can see the twine threads looped around the characters coat buttons..

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I would try your hand at the traditional cell shades, then add some comic highlights for effect. I could be stepping out of line here, but were you going for a specific look of anime, as in some movie or manga you know of? If I saw an example of what you wanted to achieve, I could probably breakdown some tips for you in coloring in a similar vein.

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...I cant think of any artist off hand ( * Masamune Shirow * ) .. there all really good IMHO ( * Masamune Shirow * ).. so im sure any of them are fine ( * give me Masamune Shirow brains on a plate so I can eat it with the hopes of getting at least half of his style *) ..so really any will do .. (*Masamune Shirow, Masamune Shirow, MASAMUNE SHIROW *)

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Okay, this is somewhat difficult for me to get around the two click rule, but this is my attempt.

Look in here for the following pictures:
/Melanie_Moody_Inks.jpg
/Melanie_Moody_Flats.jpg
/Melanie_Moody_Cel.jpg

This is an example of the 'less is more' aspect of anime style art. In the 'Inks' pic, I've taken your piece and slimmed down the number of lines to create more of a minimalist piece. That's generally the smooth and clean look of most anime styled pieces. It's also similar to the art deco style of the new breed of Bruce Timm style pinup art and fusion style superhero cartoons.

In the 'Flats' pic, I've just added basic color flats into the picture to give it some hue. It already starts to look like an animation cel, with it's very basic bold shapes.

Finally, in the 'Cel' pic, I added one and only one level of basic shading. It is not a soft shade, but instead a hard cel shade, where the light separation is very obvious. Now it really looks like an anime or animation style piece, with it's bold shapes and simple shading. To finish the job, I just added some highlight into the hair crown.

You already have the basic proportion down, you have some of the styling down, now you just need to work on the 'less is more' mantra. Once you have the style down, then you can start getting more fancy and doing more complicated techniques, like multilevel shading, soft gradation and coloring the line art itself. But for now simple is the way to go. Once you can make it look easy (which we all know it never is,) then you'll know you've succeeded.

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whats the two click rule???

anyway, this all looks great and helps me a lot as far as where ta go with it next.. though my minds still fixed on complex.. ..complex .. complex... im gonna at least try simple, or start to at least.. vector art is probably the way for me ta go next for simple shading without the temptation of mixed colors.. *hugs adobe flash*

All NSFW content needs to be behind two links. The two click rule is there so that you cannot directly link to any adult material from this site. Instead, you link to a pointer site where you can then link to the real material. This was instituted a while back by the mods.

As for the style you want to go, Masamune Shirou is probably the worst place you can steer this project. That's so high on the complexity scale that it's really no longer 'anime' style anymore. It's true CG with some anime elements. But as with anything we try, you need to take things in steps. Jumping to the end of the scale will only make all the needed skills inbetween dull and flawed in the end.

Simple, simple, simple. Then we can get more complex.

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All NSFW content needs to be behind two links. The two click rule is there so that you cannot directly link to any adult material from this site. Instead, you link to a pointer site where you can then link to the real material. This was instituted a while back by the mods.

As for the style you want to go, Masamune Shirou is probably the worst place you can steer this project. That's so high on the complexity scale that it's really no longer 'anime' style anymore. It's true CG with some anime elements. But as with anything we try, you need to take things in steps. Jumping to the end of the scale will only make all the needed skills inbetween dull and flawed in the end.

Simple, simple, simple. Then we can get more complex.

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I can't agree more.

What I see you doing with 3DSMax is cheating. You aren't really learning how to "create" what you're after, you're pushing buttons hoping the layers of filters will do it for you. That is photo manipulation, it is not art in my humble opinion... and certainly not anime.

If you want to learn Shirow's skill, look at his attention to detail. He understands the process of light, dark, form, highlight, and texture to create the things he draws the most - fabric, leather, metal, skin, hair, blood, rust, water, etc...

Those are things that require extensive study, each in of itself to get right. Using 3D programs to do it well, would also require that you have done before in either traditional or painting based digital programs, so that you have a framework of what you are trying to achieve.

I think you should bone up on your Anime Art history, to study the evolution of the coloring. The simple cell shading Shia showed you is a good place to start, when you have "mastered" that you can move on to more complex coloring and from there to even more complex coloring. I believe you understand some of anime's principles, elongated limbs, and torsos, the unsually large eyes, lack of expression, or simplification of it.

Those are apparent in your drawing, however to take that 2D process and click away for a 3D coloring polished finish, you are losing tons of the depth that would make the picture uniquely your own. Instead what you get with most filters is this generic unrefined "plasticness", that has given digital art a bad rap and almost no respect in the traditional art world...

You cannot paint complex 3D forms, with no understanding of the bare bones behind it, the process of painting itself.

I could break down how he does the eyes for you, and you maybe able to achieve great eyes, but what would the sense be on a flat face? The same goes for great leather textures but on a poorly anatomical figure, you lose the weight and impact the body can make.

I hope I haven't offended you, that is not my intent, just to say, don't skip steps with that program. Get use to using photoshop as it was not intended. Skip their filters altogether, and do some painting...

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The simple cell shading Shia showed you is a good place to start,

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Nooooooooooo! /cry

YIPES!!! /profusely apologizes for typo... S-U-I-C-H-I-R-O!

Okay Check out this Cell Shading Tute

Then do a search on DA for more Cell Shading Tutorials... this is just one of many, many out there...