So, I know little to nearly nothing about art but...

I just wanted to say I really like your art... <3

I don't know what about it makes me like it, perhaps it's the style or something...

Sorry for not being more useful...

Aw c: Thank you I was looking for critique but I really appreciate the compliment, it's uplifting right now <3

First off, your art is very nice! You seem to have a good grasp of the fundamentals. There's three big areas that I think would help you improve.

The first is imo the easiest, and that's your anatomy. I noticed that almost all of your pieces are stylized women, and quite a few have these sort of... anime shortcuts (big rounded shoes that are much easier to draw than sandals or flats, very stock hand poses, etc.). I'm sure you've heard this before since you're in school, but learning realistic anatomy and how to draw a variety of figures and physical features is pretty much the Most Important Thing. So, yeah, branch out more, try different styles, draw different kinds of people rather than just cute girls.

The second is your coloring and shading. There's nothing really noticeably wrong with it (though your shading is a little weak in places but ime it's hard to study that, you mostly just have to practice and see what looks right), mostly it's just not very interesting. For example, in this pic your color palette is pretty, but the colors aren't helping to move the eye through the picture. It's too flat and too monochromatic. Bringing in more blues and purples and introducing deeper shadows would help add depth. Same with this pic. It's clean work, but again too flat.

You're defining the shape with black lines, rather than defining it with color and depth. It should be the other way around unless you're making a coloring book. ;) There's a lot of different techniques to learn to do this. I personally use the greyscale way of painting, if I'm not doing something with cel shading.

The third is your composition. Even simple one-character pieces can be interesting if you do more with color and composition. Here's a couple examples from Studio Qube here and here. Both are just a girl with a relatively plain background, but the backgrounds, shading, and how she intersects with what's around her helps make things more dynamic. So, yeah, try to do more stuff around your characters, basically.

Like I said, you've got the basics down! That's good, but it means that what's left is the harder stuff to learn. Hope this helps? :D

You're off to a good start! I find grescale painting to be really essential to figuring out the composition of a piece if I'm working digitally. Because the monitor illuminates all colors equally, it can be very difficult to judge the values and depth of a piece. (Traditional painting is much easier in this respect because your brain isn't being tricked by the light.) Using greyscale lets you see how the picture really reads without a lot of extra visual noise. :D Plus it's much easier to fiddle with the shading when you aren't trying to chase colors around the canvas. XD

One thing with those greyscale pieces is you want to avoid pure white or pure black. Both don't exist in nature and will leave your picture looking kind of strange. And they don't leave room for dynamic colors in your shading/highlights.

Plus, it's just not how shadows work. As a general rule your lighting should inform your shadows. Dark scenes might dip towards black, but something like these two pieces your shading/highlighting should be about half what it currently is, because of the brightness of the ambient refracted light. (I tried to find a tutorial for this but I'm not having much luck. mostly just focus on building form through subtle transitions and then fiddle with the contrast until it looks right I guess. XD)

I think a lot of us are guilty of the anime shortcuts, lol. I know I certainly use them myself way too much, though I'm trying to get away from that. Don't just draw monsters and guys, though, branch out and try your hand at different stuff like repainting an old master's work or whatever (this is GREAT for learning how to properly render shadows). There's all sorts of different exercises that are great for study. :D

You're welcome! I hope it helps! If you need anything else or are trying to find tutorials or whatever, let me know. I have a lot saved. :D Happy holidays!

I actually get to do a lot of repainting old master work (or at least get to try to do something like it) in my painting class :D I did some drapery this semester~ Sadly my teacher didn't exactly cover a lot of the shading aspect as much as he was trying to teach us a method of how to actually apply paint really? I'm taking another painting class so I'll definitely brush up on shades there as well and try to get anything I can from master work (Haha..brush up, oh my God)

Again, thank you so much c:

you are very talented!! i would say you are still defining your style and that is fine, I would try to add movement and flow to your pictures they appear a little 'stiff'. But the colors are very pretty and over all very nice stuff, good job!

That was quite interesting to read! I'm a newbie when it comes to using art programs on the PC - I'm wondering which software you use? :)

Hi! :D

I personally prefer Sai for almost every part of the process, though I switch to CS2 occasionally throughout for a few functions that Sai doesn't offer. Sai is compatible with PSD files so that makes everything super easy. (CS2 really isn't necessary, though. Between Sai and a free program like GIMP you could replicate every function you'd ever need for regular digital illustration. Photoshop is really only mandatory for business uses like vectors, layout, or huge files.) Sai has much MUCH better pressure control, outputs less jittery lines, and doesn't have as much issues with lag. The microscopic lag between making a brush stroke and it displaying in CS2 is very noticeable after getting used to how smooth Sai is. :D

My usual process is something like Sketching and Refining - Sai Lines - Sai Flat Colors - Sai Converting to B&W and Shading - Sai Using a Color layer to re-add color - CS2 Anything that requires a custom brush - CS2 Adding textures - CS2 Refining everything - Sai Adding watermark and fiddling with contrast/color/DoF/etc. - CS2

The downsides of Sai are the lack of layer options (it has some basics like lumi+shade and multiply, but lacks really useful things like Color layers), and lack of custom brush options (the biggest downside imo, since custom brushes can speed up the painting process by dozens of hours).

Thank you - that's very useful info! I'd like to save time and be able to customize my tools, so the sound of using custom brushes is nice. What is CS2?

Hi c: I love your art! It definitely shows that you're in art school, and you clearly have talent, so be proud of your drawings ^^ I went to art school too, and I found there were huge growth periods where things would just click. I agree with everything said above, I hope I don't repeat anything haha

I strongly believe in life drawing, and I'm sure you've heard it a ton at school, but it's incredible what it does to your art! It's crucial to understand how something works before you can accurately recreate it. Your anatomy is very good already, but life drawing helps you develop looser lines, which gives your work more life. When I was in school, I was notorious for overworking drawings, which can make them look flat. My favorite drawing of yours is actually this one. It just feels so alive, and I feel the light, and contrast, works perfectly. The ear is a little high on the head, but aside from that, your anatomy is great! I'd love to see this quality is your other works as well. Another great example is this one; the anatomy, light, and shading is really spot on, so just carry on with whatever you did there ^^

Oh goodness, it has been a long time ha ha! And that's wonderful ^_^ I looked up Andrew Loomis, and WOW, I love his stuff! Conte is definitely my favorite medium for life drawing, but I'm a bit of a charcoal fanatic myself :) I'm definitely going to be following your stuff!

The only thing I can really think of that you might want to do is add more definition between the arms and shoulders. I can tell you've been drawing from life, which is great! But drawing from photographs is also very helpful because you're not restricted to poses or expressions that people have to be able to hold for a long time. So I'd also suggest doing some expression exercises!

Expression I haven't practiced enough so thank you, I'll look into it more! c:

no problem!!! i really need to practice it myself. (along with everything ever, since i hardly draw these days)

I agree with Gunnar on most points, he spelled it out wonderfully!

Your fundamentals are great, and I can see you're improving with coloring. My tip is to use more complimentary shades, and a little less saturated. Sometimes too vibrant of colors is distracting to the eye and detracts from the art piece.

Otherwise, everything looks just lovely. Keep on doing what you're doing.

Just as a clarification, since this post was made almost a year ago - are you referring to the old art that I posted when Gunnar had commented, or my current art now?

//head desks I need to look at the dates on these things. Moreso the old art than the new-

Oh haha - just wondering! This post is so old sometimes I wonder how it gets found but anyway, thanks for the critique! In the past year, I've definitely looked up for tutorials and etc. for coloring, and I think shading has come better to me. I also try to pay more attention to values, but thank you again anyway c: