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IriCrescent [2018-07-27 04:19:00 +0000 UTC]

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Hello MadameSpookie,

I have come across your art cause I'm watching "kogekisaru" and have read their critique of this specific work. As they stated, they didn't sugarcoat much and I did agree with a good bit of it. I won't repeat everything they said but will note a few of the things in simple agreement to extend on the tips that they provided. Regardless, your effort and hard work has brought some elements into the work that you should be proud of, and I just want to do this critique in hope that you continue to improve to greater heights.

I will level the different types of critique by my level of confidence, so it'll be labeled as such:

Needed changes - This is not to ruin your confidence, and I know a lot of work goes to adding detail. But the slightest touch ups make a difference when it comes to the eye recognizing cues. Sharper shine lines is a solid surface, while softer blended light shades is more cloth surface.

Suggestions - I'll mostly give these, cause well- I'll know something is "off" but don't quite know how to explain it as a hobby artist and just getting into coloring myself. Also unsure of your style of art, so wouldn't want to suggest something to change what you placed there on purpose.

Needed Changes:
- The title, posture of the character, and the fabric of the kimono has shown me an idea that she is sitting in shallow water. However, I do agree with moving the hands back and unbending the legs, it is not entirely an unnatural posture (I think I know where you were going with it) but it may give you space and dimension to work with.

- Her boobs are not the same size, I see the bend in her left arm, but it's not enough leaning back on her left to require the different sizing of her chest.

- Another agreement on adding effects that emphasize the clothes being wet. Not all of it needs to be wet, but anything contacting the water. A good inch or more is still effected by water because as science works, the water is filling in the space of the fabric, so it would seem to literally climb up the cloth, even if only the tip touched the water surface.

- Speaking of wet clothes, ripple effects around the body parts submerged in water will greatly improve the dimensions and water effect. By the legs, the forearms, lily pads etc.

- Removing shadowing by the left side (her left) of her head. If she isn't lying down, her head isn't by a surface to cause a shadow effect. Same goes for her hair- although I am confused if her hair is in the water. The lily pad proves it's not but her hair is long enough and the shadow almost confirms it's over a solid surface like her clothes.

- The reflection of the middle bottom of the kimono is greatly confusing on what is happening. It's such a clear cut reflection it should be under the surface of the water but we're watching from above so it should be distorted regardless. Removing it will give you space to work on other things for now.

Suggestions:
- Despite the picture looking like she is sitting in a shallow surface, some sort of element to provide texture of the surface that character is sitting on would be helpful.

- I think the neck is a little too low, and the ends of collarbones point to the direction of the shoulders, so it should also be raised and slanted if her shoulders remained raised. (I understand the difficulty of shoulders and necks) Also "twig neck" doesn't bother me, not saying that cause I'm nice, we all have our own style. Some of use make noodle characters, nothing wrong with that.

- The ear? on her left side, idk if it is an ear, or a headpiece cause I don't see another ear- or remnants of another ear. Either remove it or add something.

- Perhaps make the hair shorter or have it partially in the water. As it is now, it's long enough to be in the water, and if she's relaxing as the title implies that should be fine.

I'll stop there, mostly because those are the things I noticed under a critical eye. As a regular viewer, the hair is the most nice part of the art and style of the kimono is also lovely. I hope my critic helped, I didn't meant to overwhelm you if I did, water is in fact an Extremely hard element to work with, and body posture from a downward view. I wish you the best of luck and keep up the good work!

-IriCrescent

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kogekisaru [2018-07-27 02:54:16 +0000 UTC]

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Alright, so be for warned I don't sugar coat stuff, I'm going to tell you everything I see you did wrong, if I don't mention it assume you did it right, or at least well enough.
I have no idea what is happening here exactly, you failed to comunicate you message to your viewer. From what I am seeing there is one of two thing going on, it it really isn't clear which. Either she is sitting in shallow water proping herself out of the water. Or she is floating in the water. What you drew appears somewhere between the two. So I'm going to have to critque each possiblity seperately.
The case she is floating, unbend those legs out that is a very unnatural position for legs to be in when someone is weightless as that position requires weight to be placed on the legs to achieve for any length of time. Submerge her more, people are mostly water and we only float because of a small ammount of fat that makes our overall density slightly less then that of water, in general when floating only around 10% of your body mass will be above water. Scatter that hair, hair does not stay neat when it is floating on water.

In the case she is sitting in shallow water. Her hands are too close to her hips to be leaning back, when you lean back like that you create a trapazoid with each hand being a corner, and the widest parts of the hips each being a corner. you have the hands and hips in a line, it would be impossible for someone to remain balanced like that for any length of time. If this is clear shallow water, we should see some kind of texture of the hard surface she is sitting on, a gravel bed, dirt, stones something.


Now on to more general comments
The clothing looks dry, when cloth gets wet it becomes shiny, make your highlights have harder edges to make something look shiny. Wet clothing sticks very close to the skin, even a very baggy t-shirt will look like a skin tight musle shirt when wet. Even if she never was completely submerged it is a single piece of cloth so thanks to capalary action water would be pulled from the parts that are under water to soak the parts above water.
You have no clear light source, pick a direction the light is comming from, and cast some shadows on to your character.
Your eyes are uneven one is wider then the other.
You drew a twig neck, it is fine that it is thin, but necks have a lot of stuff and musles in them you need to learn that anatomy, you can't just draw a tube.
Don't hide your hands, a poorly drawn hand looks better then someone trying to hide the hands, better yet go do some hand studies and learn how to draw them well.
The pendant has weight to it, you need to make sure it rests against the neck as is it looks like it is floating in the air around the neck.
I have no idea what that thing sticking out of the side of her head is, I would remove it or redesign it so it is clearer what it is supposed to be.
Draw a mouth. Even if it is simple adding a small thin line to indicate where the mouth is will look better then no mouth.

There is more I could mention, but I don't want to overwhelm you.
It would do you well to do some anatomy studies, as well as some cloth studies.

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PrincessDesign51 [2018-07-28 13:26:40 +0000 UTC]

lovely

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Redblaze27 [2018-07-27 19:09:25 +0000 UTC]

I simply adore the use of colors here.

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Animeneko63 [2018-07-27 01:27:57 +0000 UTC]

AAAAH! I love it sooo freaking much! She's so relaxed and the water looks so nice! Everything about this piece is so lovely! Thank you so much :3

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