help needed

[Metalus]

I need help... most furs say my art is good but no one tells me where to improve... so please visit both my DeviantArt and FurAffinity gallery and help me improve

[Raven Song]

Sure thing buddy

[Leeward]

Okay, I'll try to provide some useful criticism...

Your overall sense of anatomy, shape and perspective is good, but your colouring could use a little perfection: it looks too cartoony for the amount of detail in your characters, especially in contrast with your detailed backgrounds. There is hardly any shading and highlighting, you could use that to your advantage to create an illusion of volume. Also try to incorporate some more texture on your surfaces, everything looks like it's made of the same material.

Does that help?

[Metalus]

Okay, I'll try to provide some useful criticism...

Your overall sense of anatomy, shape and perspective is good, but your colouring could use a little perfection: it looks too cartoony for the amount of detail in your characters, especially in contrast with your detailed backgrounds. There is hardly any shading and highlighting, you could use that to your advantage to create an illusion of volume. Also try to incorporate some more texture on your surfaces, everything looks like it's made of the same material.

Does that help?

WOW, thank you...
I am still a new user when it comes to color but the pencil sketch are one of my bigger talents.... And I kind of know that I suck at shading and highlighting

[Leeward]

That just comes with practice. Don't be afraid to try new things. Here's a suggestion: take one of your blank linearts, and make several different coloured versions that experiment with lighting and texture, and see what you can come up with. Do an "Andy Warhol" type quilt of all your attempts and see which you prefer.

[Metalus]

Ok color and shading/lighting ... practice
But
how does one add textures.... is it a kind of style or something?

[Leeward]

There are many ways of doing that. You can try a style like crosshatch, or try to find a pattern that fits the surface you want to represent. For example, scales could have kite-shaped depressions inbetween, concrete could have speckle, cloth could have some weaving pattern showing and stitches near the seams, etc. Observe and imitate: it's all there already, you just have to find a way to represent it.

[Metalus]

Hmmmmm That is something I haven't tried because of lots of detail I need to draw over....
(P.S.... Don't have drawing pad so working with a mouse is not so easy)

[Leeward]

You don't even have to add that much detail: try texturing the light areas sparsely, and only the dark areas more densely. That will create enough of an impression that the brain fills in the blanks.

[Leeward]

These kind of illustrate what I mean:

[Metalus]

Oh yea... some of my new sketches on DA are like that

[Raven Song]

shading etc can be done just by learning to use the burn tools or shae and lumo in sai... then its just painting it where you want and then its good to go.

best way to learn... in my opinion... go watch speed paints on youtube. i learned that way. i have a few up too

[Metalus]

shading etc can be done just by learning to use the burn tools or shae and lumo in sai... then its just painting it where you want and then its good to go.

best way to learn... in my opinion... go watch speed paints on youtube. i learned that way. i have a few up too

I know I have watched them all.... and still can't get some parts right

[Moon_Gazer]

(P.S.... Don't have drawing pad so working with a mouse is not so easy)

This is suuuuper late, but if you are still working with just a mouse(and I'm hoping you work into photoshop or something similar) with regards to detail i.e scales why not try creating textures with images like photo's or the like and use them as an overlay to your flat colours.

Also with regards to shading why not try cell shading which can easily be done with a mouse using the cut/lasso tools to cut away at a darkened layer that you would put over your entire character.

However, looking at your FA page your stuff is looking good though. Just keep on arting it up XD