Rikku on a fence

[Max the Man]

I drew this sometime in June, and haven't posted it anywhere lately, so...

[Zeromus_X]

cool :) by the way, are you a fan of amano's artwork?

[Max the Man]

cool :) by the way, are you a fan of amano's artwork?
yeah, why?

[Dayne]

Wow thats good.

[Max the Man]

Wow thats good.
thanks... the sad thing is that I can do better.

[Dayne]

then do better :D

[Zeromus_X]

yeah, why?
just wondering. i love amano's art :)

[Spiff]

looks nice

:thumbsup:

[Max the Man]

yay!!!!

[Zerlina]

It looks great! I like how you tried to stay true to the character.

The problem to me seems to be your anatomy. The proportions are off and it takes away from your art. Some problems which I noticed are the length of her limbs (most especially her arms, but also her legs). They're much too short and this stunts her in a way. Try drawing out guidlines first with a stick figure and then later lumping on shapes. I use ovals, but some people prefer cylinders. Also, her torso is very odd. If you look here (http://www.bigfoto.com/sites/galery/people/girl-standing-3sf.jpg) , you can see that the breasts should sit on top of the rib cage, and not spill out to the side. If your drawing was actually alive, she'd probably have trouble putting her arms down without hurting herself. Don't worry, though, this is a common problem.
Now, with her face, your main trouble seems to be that everything's placed too high, and also the shape of the face is a little off. If you meant to draw manga then consider that the eyes are usually halfway down the head, and from there you can figure out the rest. Right now, her eyes are in her forhead (or she has a really low hairline). Try drawing a cross across an oval to begin with, and then shape it from there. Good tutorials on this can be found at www.howtodrawmanga.com . For more realistic styles, invest in a good book. [b]Keep in mind manga is just a stylized form of realism, though.[b]
The fence is a manmade object, so using a ruler would be a good idea.
Also, your strokes seem very choppy and abrupt. Draw very lightly first and allow your hands to do as they wish. If the image is too light, it can be darkened once you scan it. Going over it harshly only takes away from your picture.
There. Hope that helps. Nice drawing! :)

[Andrew Scaves]

Admin Edit : no need for what you said Andrew! If you got nothing nice to say, don't post. Thats very easy!!

[Zerlina]

Clearly that last comment was considerate. Lord knows we should all answer to people who know people who can draw.

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Here, I drew this up to help you. I did it pretty quickly, but yeah, anyways.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v92/greenabsinthe/rikkuproportions.jpg

You can see how the human body is built up of different shapes. The spine is outlined in red, and the weight is shown in red arrows. The direction of the weight will determine how the body reacts to the pose and how the clothes will. The purple lines show the tilt of the shoulder and hips.
You might notice the legs look funny. This is because of the weight distribution. By looking at the direcional arrows, you can see that even with the fence there, she would fall over. It's a very unnatural pose. Try doing it yourself. The solution to this would be that instead of bending her left leg at the knee, to have it move in the right direction from the hip. The foot also wouldn't go out so far.
It's a good idea to take poses from reference pictures, or to stand in front of a mirror and do it yourself when you're first starting a drawing. I do this with everything. The good thing about doing it yourself is that you have more freedom. The bad thing is that you have to draw while keeping the pose, and also you can't get interesting angles. Using reference pictures is great for more complex poses.
Keep in mind these are manga proportions so if you want it to look more realistic, use a more egg-shaped torso and shorter legs.
I'm not saying everybody does, but a lot of people start their drawings this way. It helps you to spot any problems from the beginning, and also keep your figure constant. Besides, it's easier to draw a model and put clothes on them, than to draw clothes and put a model in it.

Stepping away from body proportion for a second, I'm going to mention a flaw in the face. The nose goes much too high. If you notice, your nose comes to an end where your eye is. http://www.michelejaco.com/Michele%20Jaco%20Headshot.JPG

Keeping this in mind, try re-drawing the picture. You'll find that when you start breaking your drawings down this way it'll be a lot easier.


Hope that helped!

[Avathar]

...i actually hate those books, where you can 'learn' to draw manga. Most of them are really not good at helping at all. You'ld just draw the pictures over and over, and you wouldn't learn anything new. Then i just grab a book about anatomic drawing, and i can learn the better propositions and perspectives. PLUS you can develop your own style with that, instead of copying manga.

[baralai]

Its a cool picture!