So I almost never draw anymore, I used to really love it and have been frowning at myself over how empty my pet's look since I used to love making their characters and drawing them so much years ago.

Anyway though so after a lot of arguments with my muse I decided to draw my harvester Rakuen.

He didn't come out half bad considering most of the crap I draw but his hands are really irking me in this picture among other things so please feel free to critique, red line whatever you want. I'd really like to improve this picture and actually finish and give my pets nice profiles and art by me ^^ And if there is anything about the pic that isn't trash I'd love to hear that too lol.

http://i61.tinypic.com/znrlfl.jpg

Maybe work on the angle of the hands more to make them look more proportional?

Firstly, congratulations on getting back into drawing =3 Secondly I love the movement in this, the sense of action on behalf of the character through pose, hair and cloth, you have a really good sense of how to capture action.

But I do have a number of criticisms. Firstly anatomy, presuming there is no foreshortening and the arms laid by the sides, the elbows should be inline with the bottom of the ribcage, hands reaching to just below the hips, the forearm from elbow to wrist is as long as the foot (go on, try it) and folded the wrist would be slightly below the shoulder. The arms are continually tapered, this shape is made by the muscles not the bone so will me more or less exaggerated depending on the muscle mass of the character. The only part that widens is the elbow which is bone, on a skinny character the elbow will seem prominent and sharp, on a heavily built character they'd be imposed upon by the muscle. Fat doesn't build up much on the forearms, but where is does is on the outside and upper half.

The shape of the arms will come through on closely fitting or draped material and be obscured by puffy things like big winter coats, so even if you're covering your character an understanding of their anatomy is vital.

Though the arm tapers continuously (except for a slight increase in width below the elbow), it fails to do so after the wrist, from the wrist to the first knuckles the hand widens then tapers again to closed finger tips, all the knuckles unless specifically distorted should follow a curve from one to the other irrespective of the position of the fingers.

Bare in mind where different appendages join, currently his neck is off centre on his shoulders, which are wider than the arm directly below them, the arm shouldn't flow smoothly into the shoulder, but rather bump out. THIS has a good silhouette of the arm in conjunction with the underlying skeleton.

Hand size remains the same irrespective of the muscle/fat mass on a person, though it might get thinner or pudgier, the length and width varies very little. This means any given individual with a large amount of muscle mass may appear to have comparatively small hands, whereas if you shrunk the muscle down they'd appear large without actually changing. On average the hand is as long as the face is tall, base of hand on chin, tip of middle finger near hairline -- though DMAB men have larger hands than DFAB women (on the whole).

Hands and faces are REALLY important to focus on, the human brain is predetermined to focus on those two points so if you get them wrong or don't refine them it can really throw off the rest of the picture, no matter how much time or effort goes into the rest of it. Detail can be made to appear increased by including aspects of the hands, tendons, nails etc... or by simply making sure they're not roughly finished. Same for the face: particularly the eyes, mouth and nose, the magic triangle =3

Cloth will gather towards joints, the elbow, shoulder etc... in folds, even close fitting cloth doesn't remain flat and smooth, this allows the body to move without being impeded by the cloth. The number and types of folds depends on the weight of the cloth, the stiffness and how much pressure is exerted upon it by the body.

I love the movement in the image, but it's looking confused at the moment with little indication of where the wind direction is coming from. I picked a summoned tornado, which was... probably a bit beyond my skills tbh... and planned out the wind direction and worked out where the hair and cloth would go -- ideally during this time you'd also plan how to... fudge it a bit to not obscure the face, since windy weather = long hair in face more often than not.

I will always recommend studying and practising accurate realistic anatomy before or alongside attempting to stylise, as the other way around can lead to some odd proportions and habits that are hard to lose.

I hope that's of some use to you ^^

Wow I didn't expect this level of help and guidance when I posted this topic, thank you so very much I really appreciate it a lot and will give it a try again hopefully improving it a lot! hugs you tons

No problem at all ^w^ good luck with your work, don't forget patience and perseverance is key, sadly nothing happens overnight ;w;