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MarikBentusi — Element Explained: Lighter
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Published: 2010-07-17 21:49:57 +0000 UTC; Views: 2360; Favourites: 18; Downloads: 48
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Every time I try to finish my main project, another idea wants to be visualized... *sigh*...I thought it was about time a gun showed up, so here you go. Isn't implemented in the story yet, but I'll think about it.
Fun Fact: The German word for lighter translates to "fire thing". The word for plane translates to "fly thing". Surely German is a poetic language, haha.
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Comments: 24
Dual-wielding flamethrowers? This just keeps getting better and better. I can't believe I'm saying this about a Drow character of all things, but she is rapidly climbing her way to the top of the Ladder of Awesome.
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Glad to hear that.
You just reminded me I still have to add a description about the secondary fire mode which is inspired by water pistols. Sounds ridiculous? Well it isn't .
Tho the range shouldn't be that great, it should give her an option to use the flamethrowers for bigger distances than the default spray flame.
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Well at least you have ideas right? ^^
I think it's really cool ^^ Great job!
Haha, and I'm very sure German is a poetic language.
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You're very welcome ^^
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In response to your fun fact: German takes such simplistic ideas and turns them into wicked-sounding business XD
And it's best to go ahead and take on those ideas even if it's not part of the main project...yet. (You'll be worn out if you just focus on nothing but the main project)
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I'm afraid those ideas just keep delaying the project. It's not like I'm worn out because of focus, tho I do admit my motivation has experienced a low ever since a bluescreen stole hours of work (but luckily not experience) _-_ I'm only about 90% finished with the lineart and I keep thinking of new stuff to add. Mind you it's not stuff like this Lighter, those are ideas that just float by me and I feel like I have to flesh out the idea before I lose it - and then I end up doing these concepts.
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I see...how many hours has it taken you to finish the lineart you've completed so far? And what exactly is the main project focusing on? - Main characters? Weapons? Is it scenery-intensive?
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I haven't counted the hours, but I've been redefining the lineart in irregular sessions since February - of course, as my gallery shows, I did some other things in the meantime, too.
It's mostly an anatomy study integrated in a picture. Meaning it's only one person with a bit something around it so the picture doesn't look so empty.
The original pre-bluescreen image featured scenery as a background, but I think I'll be happy if I manage to just finish the person this time.
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When you post the "work in progress" picture of it, does it encourage you to push further with it? Or does it bother you when other people see where you are so far? (Some people tell me it helps them get the project finished when people are watching the WIPs...)
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Nah, I don't think a WIP would encourage me. 
I usually share WIPs with my ol' friend ~Shampie . In this case her advice is partially very useful because she draws a lot of women/girls, but partially not very useful because she has a very... certain view how women/girls should look in pictures. Fashionable, no tomboys, no small breasts, curves. Which is not entirely my goal when trying to create a varied cast instead of The Superior League Of Supermodels.
It wouldn't bother me to show you the status quo, tho. I'm still playing around with angles and the anatomy and want to add some things, but I think it's a better preview than nothing. Just ignore the feet and legs for the moment, I still need practice on those. >_>
Click me, I'm a link!
(The original image is 1500x2400px tall, so I had to scale it down to 30%, so details aren't visible I'm afraid)
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You can always work on backgrounds some other time, so I'll focus on the character.
I think something that helps a lot is when you can take a picture and flip it over on a mirror and see the symmetry of it...like for example, sometimes I draw a character and think yay! it's nice! and then I see it flipped on a mirror and think Oh crap...it's stretched in a tilted way.
As a general rule, if it doesn't look ok to you flipped over as a mirror image, then it needs some touch up.
Of course, no male or female is of perfect symmetry, but there are small things you can touch up on, like the character's left shoulder (from her point-of-view). Maybe her left shoulder should be a bit higher than the right (try re-enacting the pose in a mirror to see what I mean).
Also, there is nothing wrong with using photo references whenever possible. But think larger on the hands. I know you told me to neglect the legs and feet for a moment, but the legs look proportional to her body, so that's not a big problem at all (just don't make the feet too small).
I'll leave breast sizes and curves to your own discretion, since no woman is necessarily an exact model of every other woman you see in a magazine.
How old is your character in that picture supposed to be, or rather, how old is she intended to appear as?
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Yeah, focusing on the character was my main intention. I'll either not include a background at all (like that whites, shining space on my last few deviations) or make it very blurry so I can be lazy and lay literal focus on the character.
Haha, flipping images is really fun. But they always look wrong for me, I guess that's linked to my memory. I get so used to songs any live version I find on YouTube instantly bugs me because it's a bit different from what I expected to hear next
So I don't really know if this flipped image looks /really/ awkward to me because I'm used to it or because I heavily screwed up on it.
Aha, her cursed left shoulder. ~Shampie urged me to change it around until it looked like this. Apparently she either led to me a wrong direction or just said I fixed it while meaning something else, lol.
I guess the problem is my original pose was supposed to feature a contrapposto , but as you can see that idea became very vague over the course of several new lineworks over the old one and trying to redefine the original pose. :/
On the hands, because I suck at anatomy I use a layer of simple lines to compare body part sizes to each other as nature luckily always leaves some hints for correct proportions behind.
I compared the hand-length (from the tip of the middle finger to the wrist) to the head. When I touch the middle of the beginning of my hairline, the wrist or carpus touches around that little space between lower lip and chin.
I've made her hands a bit smaller, hers touch around the middle of the mouth, which is about in line with [link] ">this tutorial. Comparison .
The legs are actually a bit tall in comparison I think. If we stick to the rule of the thumb and say an average male is 8 heads high and a female 7 heads high, that is. Until the hip the headcount is okay, around 3,5 heads, but after that follows 4,5 to 5 heads, making her about 8 heads tall instead of 7 because of the long legs.
Not that I have a problem with long legs on females (unless they reach the size of Bayonetta's *shudder*), their size doesn't even bug me if I look at the image as a whole, but it's not really correction proportions.
(Then again she isn't completely human, but I hate to draw that "excuse")
Ah yes, "breast sizes and curves". I'm afraid you gotta help me on this one (no, really). The problem with this situation is that I got ~Shampie on the one side telling me her breasts are (too) small and the body not curvy enough and on the other side there's that little devil on my shoulder telling me male artists always make way too big-breasted and curvy female characters and because I definitely don't want to contribute to those examples I have to reduce the breast size and make everything... "less curvy"? Can you say it like that?
So really, I'm always a bit lost when designing females, but it's especially hard with this case because she's a main character and her design more important than that of the others. What do you think?
I pictured her the way she is at the moment because of two things: First, didn't undergo any fighter training or is using heavy arms, so I didn't show any defined muscles. Second, family-wise, she always felt responsible for her mother's death and thus wanted to fit the expectations of her father, a proud doctor naturally keeping an eye on healthy food, and sister, who succeeded the family line and became a doctor herself and is overall seen as both beautiful and competent.
While my characters are supposed to be overall attractive (the normal level for fictional characters I guess) I don't want to exaggerate anything. I'm actually caught between "reduce breast size and make her less curvy" and "You're thinking about this way too much because of the wrong reasons, leave it like it is". But I'm afraid I need another person to do some judging here. 
I'm afraid I didn't do any numbers on the characters (~Shampie also asked about age... also measurements for bust, waist and hip and her cup size. I am so lost on those areas (that and fashion lol) and so bad at guessing
And yes, she's older than she looks like due to the elven part of her genetics - perfect excuse to have a skilled addition to the cast while still fitting the visual age group - especially if those abilities your average magic-powered heroes learn within episodes would take months in your story. xP
P.S.
Imitating the pose in a mirror wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but the shoulders actually looked fine to me. It looked off with a straight upper body, but it's possible if you're just lifting the right arm. Then again my body was hidden underneath a shirt, I don't have a female body and just because it's technically possible doesn't mean it looks good on a drawing drawing.
Making her left shoulder higher than her right one would tilt the pose in a different direction tho - if I understood you correctly.
A few picture to show what I mean:
rough pose sketch . If I make her left shoulder higher than the right one, I'd have to change the overall posture and arms, too. But if the change is that important I could do it...
A little shoulder surgery because that area looked off to me. Good/bad?
I appreciate all your input on this, thank you very much
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I can "believe" the elven part actually - I'm friends with a girl who is 19 years old, but I swear, you'd think she's still 12 based on her appearance O_o
As far as the breasts and curves go, I appreciate that you are trying not to follow the path most males follow, since one of the people I'm watching, he always draws his females all the same, and it kind of irritates me (I mean, he does a great job with it, but...he needs to expand his range a bit more, but here I digress)...
Actually, you do have the tropes that indicate why a woman should be drawn with larger breasts... but wait? Why follow the tropes when you can overturn them at any time? Besides, there's no reason why your character MUST have large breasts. She's not a brawler , and her existence isn't meant to be played for laughs and gags . She doesn't have anything challenging her regarding a big bra to fill . I think the way you drew her breasts and curves is perfectly acceptable (any more or less exaggeration on her body, and you enter the deal of explaining why it's there to begin with).
Since her right leg is the one taking most of her body weight in the contrapposto, I still believe her left arm folding over her body should be connected to a higher shoulder, but that's probably because when I stand that way, that is what's comfortable for me to do.
I am glad that even as a male, you are entering the realm of expanding your talents and abilities on a wider variety of characters. Too many people enclose themselves in their comfort zones just because of their own personal gender and body type.
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Elven age(ing) is actually an interesting (that is, I hope it's interesting) part of project "Fantasy Race Deconstruction". It's essentially combining the stereotypes of eternal youth, forest elves and long-longevity and then break it down. Humans these days can easily live up to 60, 80 or more years due to advanced medicine and hygiene. Cavemen were a phenomenon if they made it to the number that is 40.
Essentially, the Elven stereotype that lives in the forest is an analogy to the cavemen and dies before real signs of aging show. Thanks to a longer lifespan in general, it looks like they can live just as long as humans. This is why they were said to have gained "eternal youth", when in reality they just died early because of low hygiene standards and insufficient medical treatment. Oh the irony.
I love working on those fantasy stereotypes, especially on human stereotypes that correspond with stereotypes made up for other races. For example, there's often the talk about "Ork language" or "Elven language", like one race has only one language (and maybe some accents), so according to the human stereotype we also only got one "human language", which is Latin. Or we got "ice humans" in the North and "dark humans" in Africa (in analogy to "dark elves").
I don't know if it's a good or bad sign I actually didn't need to hover above those linked words to see the links to the Tropes because I already knew where they would lead. xD
Yeah, when thinking about how to design the next female character I sometimes actually feel like having to apologize for how bad my gender did in the past. Not that it ever drastically changes any plans or I design a character specifically just so I can "correct mistakes" male writers before me did. First and foremost, the characters are independent and implemented in their own story; deconstruction and the like is second priority.
I have no idea what people are thinking when they design useless damsels in distress that do nothing but scream for help, are completely dependent and... in general just one big Bella Swan.
There's nothing wrong with having weak moments, showing emotion and needing someone, but it must not be your full-time job. I'm trying to smooth out that part by making the characters helping each other so that I don't fall into the trap to make the exact same mistake just with the different gender. Sometimes character A needs character B, sometimes B needs A. It's all about defeating your own weakness by taking the strength of your partner and in turn defeat the weaknesses of your partner by giving them your strength. Gender is insignificant. This is especially easy to show on the battlefield with the medic/fighter combo Kharseth and Talitha form.
In general, I think little of gender when designing characters, it plays a biological role in the first place. Of course in the story there are people like in real life that make bigger differences out of gender, too. If everyone accepted the perfect social equality between genders, it'd be completely unrealistic.
That "duty" always makes me double-check my characters to watch if I did something crappy unconsciously or because I'm used to a certain stereotype. For example, I wasn't sure about Talitha's design (memory-refreshing link, go! ) because the sweater and skirt, while not a mini-skirt, was a bit fan-service-y, but because I didn't feel like it was too Stripperiffic to change it, I just decided to balance-out the fanservice in future designs. Because for some reason (official) Man-Service is really rare compared to female fan-service, but that may be because of the kind fiction I consume.
btw, my overzeal led to an embarrassing moment when I showed drafts of female character design to a female buddy that isn't into fiction much, asked if it was sexist in any sense and she didn't know what the fuck I saw in those pictures.
The Boobs Of Steel entry never influenced my character design. I mean, see this girl here at the bottom of the page? See her massive cleavage? Yeah, me neither. She's a sniper. Also in possession of that handgun-sized flamethrower I recently uploaded. But in general, the characters are designed so there is no "strongest" one. A medic, even with deflection and absorption skills, is useless on their own, a sniper is useless if the enemy only has them as their target and even the versatile fighter that is the male protagonist won't last longer than the two above without any support. Teamwork is shiny!
I think I'm gonna re-design the pose. Like I said, it initially was a contrapposto (weird word, in German it's just Kontrapost), but over the time it became... something blurry. I tried to ignore the problem, but now I feel like I'm doing a half-assed picture if I don't correct it. Will mean some major lineart changes tho
New (tho still rough) skeleton: here .
Orange = new, with "more contrapposto". The old, green one is rounder tho because I just had to re-draw the torso-outline.
But... I dunno, this pose looks off, like it doesn't fit in. Could be because I'm used to the old version (again), but especially the leg constellation doesn't seem to fit the facial expression and the rest, really. Maybe it gets a little bit clearer if I mention I wanted to add that sort of... hip-bikini-towels oh I don't know what you call these, but they look fancy. I wanted it untied, her left hand pressing an end on the hip, the rest already fallen to the ground and her left foot stepping out of it. That way I wanted to guide the view from the hip downwards. And also force myself to practice folds >_>
What do you think? And what did you think about that shoulder fix from last time? Repost
It's funny. One of my motivations that made me start this pic in the first place was that I wanted to display Talitha as a bit more feminine than in the story, because I tend to forget about such things when writing scenes full of asskicking. One of the things I wanted to avoid with Talitha's design is the slowly emerging stereotype of two different types of women in fiction: Either you're a flat-chested tomboy who kicks ass and drinks can beer or you're the big-busted feminine woman who is only good at cheering, marrying and cooking. I want to find something in between without creating a Mary Sue.
Pics like these don't really give her credit, but they remind me of "her other side" which is why I draw them.
A very varied cast in mind and body makes the interaction with the setting interesting in the first place. No two persons react exactly the same to their environment.
I guess the next step will be learning how to draw people with over- and underweight. I imagine that being tough. >_>
Thanks for all your help and interest
P.S.
~Shampie said two things that confused me a bit:
First, a neckholder-bikini (I learned a new word that day!) looked stupid on a flat flat chest because it isn't "filled". Now I don't know about you, but I didn't think I drew her breasts that small Oo
Second, she said her cleavage shouldn't be that parabola-shaped, but then, just when I said I was gonna see about that point in her critique, she said I should keep the way it is right now because it looks "more youthful and innocent" and "less lewd and porn-like". That sudden change of mind made me think I'm stepping on veeery thin ice on this matter, but she wouldn't go into detail about why she thinks it looks this way or what her initial suggestion was. I don't expect you to read her mind, but if you have/had similar thoughts, please tell me. xD
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I find it interesting how elves could be just like humans - passing on earlier than we expect them to, even if it's not obvious.
And don't worry, even some of the girls I know understand those "busty" links just as well as guys do. And they're not even active on TVtropes O_o
No offense to Twilight-fans, but as far as I'm concerned Twilight is nothing but an uncreative paparazzi-driver made for money. I can't judge the author's writing-style firsthand, but if there's ANY hole you should avoid falling into, it's anything tropified in that story. Not that the tropes are all bad themselves, but as I said, Twilight makes very uncreative use of them and projects them all into the world of popularity (unfortunately). Even Bella Swan is nothing but a Mary Sue of the author.
I think that's one of the things I like about your story and characters (besides the fact that you are using your power as a story creator to deconstruct those common stereotypes) - that teamwork factor is up there as one of the most important aspects. But would you say your story is also genre-breaking ? It's ok if it isn't - it's better to focus in on the story itself before thinking of how it fits into a "genre."
But as for the linework you drew up so far - it's ok to draw Talitha's left leg turning inward again if it's more sensible to you. It's only the shoulder that got me (since that was/is my weak point in drawing male and female characters in various poses). The slight improvement on the lineart is ok, but not as dramatic as I think you should try for. I wish I could come up with a picture that can emulate that pose to show what I mean... *Scrounges around the Internet* sorry for the pitiful image , but note that the side of the body putting the most weight on the leg (in this case, the man's right-side) has a raised hip...but even if his hips were not shifted in such a major way, his shoulders would still have to balance the weight, in this case, by lifting up his left shoulder higher than his right. Usually, when you raise your arm into any type of pose other than a natural relaxed hanging, it raises the shoulder a bit too. But balance of the body as a whole tends to take precedent over what a small portion of the body is doing.
I'm assuming that if Talitha was standing on a particular type of background, it would be a flat setting, right? Or at least, the immediate ground she's standing on would be flat? This body-balance idea tends to become a bit more convoluted when you throw scenery and background into the mix. But sometimes you can use that scenery affecting body-balance to your advantage if you want to "cheat."
Body weight on a character is difficult to work with when you want to go to extremes. Maybe underweight is easier because you can stay close to the skeleton of the character, but once you add any characteristic body flab, you need to take note of where fat tends to accumulate for different sexes and ethnicities, as well as how fat hangs off the body (since it's not always one big BLOB for most people).
Sometimes it's fun to draw those characters, but it's hard for me too [link] (such as in this anatomyFAIL picture I sketched three years ago before coloring about last year) - I intended for that character on the left side of blondie to be a bit more stout - but he also played sports, so maybe you could say he is muscle too? But his shoulders didn't indicate it, and I was too lazy to change it as I colored it. But I tend to draw a little better from that time - in here , the black-haired girl is intended to be anorexic, or close to it (the strawberry-blonde girl came out as a fail, so don't worry about her). I still need to practice how body fat folds onto the body, but muscles are tough for me to draw. I hope to slowly improve on them - this is my most recent attempt at drawing a muscular body build (for a male). Do you think you can give me some tips or pointers on what I need to do to improve on that? Personally, I feel like I should have drawn his shoulders wider...
When I draw females, I have a preference to avoid this kind of design (not that the guy drew her badly, but he seems to draw ALL of his female OCs that way).
Oh, and "neckholder-bikini" is a new one for me O_o
~Shampie makes a good point by telling you to keep Talitha's chest a bit more parabola-shaped, but you need to stay consistent with it if it's meant to be characteristic to her appearance.
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fff I just realized some of the links screw up. If your browser tells you that link is broken, delete the “ character at the end of the URL or the %93 at the end. Apparently it does matter for the code if I use " or “.
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Yeah, Twilight is one big clusterfuck and Bella Swan is the Anti Sue Queen on top of it. I didn't read the books myself but there are enough quality parodies out there (some of which work with actual quotes but play the scenes like satire), not to speak of the TV Tropes page.
The thing is, I don't even have something against Twilight per se (read on) because it's just another poorly written book full of Purple Prose with even more poorly written characters. There are lots of bad stories, bad games, bad shows, etc. What's really bugging me is the resonance it received. The hordes of Fangirls and even "Twilight Moms". ERGH. And it's bugging me to the moon and back to earth how so many young women apparently have an ideal relationship in mind which features being completely and utterly dependent on your boyfriend a.k.a. creepy stalker. Twilight flew WAY past an innocent fantasy to me, the sort of relationship advertised is just unhealthy.
And yes, the story sounds like one big Self-Insert FanFic, featuring the author as the main character and her Marty Stu as her beloved. Maybe that's why it's so popular. It's practically the king of its genre, sitting on a throne together with My Immortal (if you didn't read it, try it sometime. It gets more and more terrible/hilarious over time). Think of all those fanfiction writers with a similar plot, think of all those who didn't write such a story but had the same idea in mind – that's gotta be a lot of audience.
The story could very well be genre-breaking. Its setting virtually empowers me to enter any world imaginable, be it a post-apocalyptic city, a world where everything is run by pink little unicorns, a space station network or some bizarre mind-screwing dream landscape. I got also chunks of philosophical brainfarts to share, one of the initial ones being about free will, coincidence and human assumption, the main one being the... err... "deconstruction of good and evil" (?) as in this story the definition of the two words is subjective and depending on your point of view and the society you were born in. .
Character-wise I try to go into a similar direction as Ödön von Horváth who made a difference between how a person really is and how they are seen by others/what their “social disguise“ looks like. I expand that a bit and try to have in mind how the characters react towards different situations and “audiences“.
For instance, Lilly is shy and nervous towards new people, but shows a carefree and honest nature when in a secure circle of trust and is very hardworking when alone. Talitha is an opposite, in a way. She's self-confident and friendly around new people (naturally, she is a doctor after all) but she gets more and more insecure and lost the deeper a relationship goes. Which is partially due to her fear of closer bonds being able to hurt her, partially due to inexperience that results of the former.
So there's always more than one layer to a character. Their development and exploration plays a good deal of importance for the story.
It's a bit like NGE 's Children whose personality, issues and character development became especially important during the last two episodes of the original TV series - only I want to stretch it all out so I don't have to suddenly drop the plot and focus on the characters like NGE did. Ideally a person can identify with a character and grow with them.
I didn't have a specific genre in mind when designing the setting and characters, but the Fantasy genre has become such an uninspiring pool of mud full of the same races, creatures and antagonists it was the most fun to pick on. That and swords are cool.
I think the only genre I haven't touched so far is romance.
…
*makes a note*
…
This is gonna be hard, isn't it?
Oh lordy I think I've confused you with the whole contrapposto thing.
It was supposed to be one in the beginning, but when I re-enact the current pose in the mirror it doesn't look one at all. Like you said, shoulders and hips aren't at the right angled at that and overall the body isn't limp enough for that pose, too. Usually contrapposto is your average „standing comfortably“ pose, which isn't really the case here.
I guess you could say the pose in the beginning was a contrapposto, but it isn't supposed to be one anymore. It's just... a pose for which I don't know the name
Re-enacting the current pose works fine for me in the mirror, should I post a pic of it?
And yes, the setting is supposed to flat.
Yeah, body weight can be a real bitch. That and fat tissues in combination with the harsh mistress gravity. I'm glad nobody said Talitha's breasts don't obey gravity well so far, because that's something I don't practicse much. Male bodies are so much easier in that regard _-_ Apparently I did manage to avoid drawing them like full balloons tho.
I don't know if I'm in the position to give you pointers, but what I can give you is two links by a very comic artist:
[link]
[link]
Also, if you want to show off a body's physique, you may want not to draw the person in a loose shirt like in that last picture you posted - unless that person got a really broad back so you can tell he/she is trained because of the proportions between hips and shoulders alone. That or a big [link] >trapezius.
Like it's said in one of the tutorials above, posture and clothing is important when you want to show off that stuff.
(which is why I didn't include that much clothing [link] >here)
Yeah, ~Fantasy34 seems to be very... open about his Author Appeal, lol. I never understood what's so great about big boobs to be honest.
He's also an example for what I wanted to avoid when drawing breasts. Pics like [link] >this one make it look like either there's no gravity or the breasts are fake/silicone implants/held by some magical invisible bra.
~Shampie makes a good point by telling you to keep Talitha's chest a bit more parabola-shaped, but you need to stay consistent with it if it's meant to be characteristic to her appearance.
Oh, she didn't mean her chest needs to be parabola-shaped, she meant her cleavage should look less like a parabola. Don't know if she wanted it more [link] >angular or [link] >V-shaped. \(o_o)/
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That "My Immortal" story is so horrible...but in my opinion, not horrible enough to be "good." But perhaps the author can lampshade herself a little, and that works to her favor lol. 👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Change of subject... your whole approach to the story will be a huge challenge. But when you pull it off, it will be successful. I must say, the "pink little unicorns" got my attention. Well, not just that, but so much potential is there for you. It probably is a bit too difficult to nutshell your story into one summary because of the directions it'll focus on, and the (hidden) goals of it - as well as watching out for the misconceptions people may have about it from the assumptions they make. In that case, summaries may do more harm than good for some readers unless you pick the right words to explain the explicit points of the plot, while allowing the audience to view and interpret the implicit aspects of the story for themselves. (I'm just saying this now, because I know someday you will have to make a summary of your story to fit the size of a paragraph).
The pose you want to draw...you don't have to post a photo of it if it's a bit troublesome (I know I can't post photos of myself very easily due to my camera being shot, so I feel bad asking you to post a photo of yourself...unless it helps to show your point better).
I guess I'm really clueless about cleavage (I apologize)...but both images (when I cover the faces of the women) still appear less child-like to me - I guess because it's Victoria's Secret they're advertising O_o
I think it's more appropriate to make the angular cleavage if it's really necessary (the V-shape might make her breasts look more like balloons...too "mature-looking"). But the more I see how you drew Talitha's cleavage, the more acceptable it looks to me. Any further modifications would come in the form of shading and coloring, methinks.
Sorry about misunderstanding what ~Shampie said. Though...I'd hate to start picking on other parts of the picture on you if it bothers you, but take a look at Talitha's right forearm. Do you think you can try shortening it just a little bit? Just try it - by like a half of her fingers length...you can keep the hands the same way though, but you'll just be shifting her hand down a little. It's because from her elbow, her forearm juts out a little bit forward in a slight angle towards the viewer...but the length of it indicates that it's pointing straight out sideways, which is a little bit anatomically uncomfortable (at least for me to imitate).
(I hope you don't mind me modifying your picture, but I'm trying to illustrate what I mean) What I'm aiming to explain is this . You don't have to try that if it makes you uncomfortable. It's just a thought.
--> And I'm extremely grateful for you linking me to those tutoring posts. Those were a big help for me. Thank you so much~
fff, I just wanted to clean my tablet and send my reply when my browser misunderstood me and ended up closing the page. D: So, sorry for the delay:
Twilight's madness doesn't end with pre-teens. Girls my age of which you'd think they would start getting a grip of life or something. My frikkin German teacher. WHAT THE- Schiller, Goethe and Stephanie Meyer!? I think not.
I laughed a lot at the end of My Immortal. It was so overdone it almost was satire of satire. I think one of my favorite lines is "Dumbledore's broomstick came to him sexily" after a lot of mundane actions had been described as done "sexily" before. I tried to imagine that broomstick. I failed and laughed.
Attempted summary of the parts I'm pretty sure about is here . Can convey neither atmosphere nor immersion of course.
I'll take a photo tomorrow (It was 2 AM when I first wrote it and now it's 2:50
Huh, you're right, those sources are about Victoria's secret. Biased Google?
I agree on the arm, that bending could make the whole area look less stiff.
Attempted fix
I don't know about the elbow tho. I drew the part a bit differently, but I'm not sure if it's convincing.
Feel free to point out more things like that, I'm sorry if I chased you away with my latest reactions to criticism or something. :S
Also, I'll never forgive you for misunderstanding what ~Shampie said because of my bad phrasing, for manipulating the pic and for you wanting to help me with your advice, you silly, silly, silly person.
By the way, I got the notice you sacrificed 4 points to the local donation pool god (he says he will eat you last on Judgement Day), thank you very much. Anything I can offer in return? After all 4 points are a lot for a ~member.
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*imagines a broomstick moving sexily*
Hmmm...perhaps Dumbledore's broomstick has an ERGONOMIC feel to it.
I'm still bewildered by the extense your story covers...but the Traumkrieger summary is a great way to pique the audience's interest.
I think the fix is good for her right arm. Don't worry, you didn't chase me away with your reactions lol. I'll let you know if I see anything else you could tailor-up. And I'll take "punishment" with honor
Those 4 points were scrounged up from that silly llama trade game . Lately, not many people have been putting up points to trade for llamas, so "point income" sucks. But I don't really use the points for anything, so I don't mind giving all of them to you and other people.
Since it was a donation, I'm not really needing anything in return. But thank you for asking 
Though I had a random question (a psychological survey-like question, if you will) --> based on how I write, can you figure out my gender? (I won't be offended by any honest answer)
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Haha, yeah, Aitia started out as an ideadump in the first place. When I started the story I pretty much just had the character and the freedom to start anything I want, later on I decided to try and "compose" the whole thing and design it from beginning to end rather than just continue writing what I felt like. But the variety originating from the freedom of the start is still here. One the one hand I feel like I should rather focus on specific things, on the other hand this is a story in which all kinds of worlds connect, so variety is to be expected.
Yeah, llama trade is how I gather points, too. Having two plz-accounts ( and ) means a bit of additional income tho.
I can't figure out somebody's gender by their writing alone (usually), but judging from your interests/favs/gallery I'd guess female. 
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Good bet. Yes I am female 
And those plz accounts do some good
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Well, it's (usually) hard to make out if you're male or female on the net if you don't leave that piece of information behind - anonymity works it seems.
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